EDITORIAL: Russia Lost the “Great Patriotic War”

Who won the battle of Ryazan in Russia during World War II, which Russians crazily refer to as “The Great Patriotic War”? Was it the Germans, who lost 500,000 soldiers, or was it the Russians, who lost a million?

Who won the battle of Stalingrad (now Volgograd)? Did Russians “win” that battle the same way they “won” the battle of Moscow against Napoleon, by cleverly razing the city to the ground and wiping out its population so the invaders couldn’t make use of them? If so, then “win” a few more battles like that and you don’t really have much country left to defend, do you?

If you, like any normal person who can count, say it was Russia which lost these battles and which, indeed, lost the “GPW” in its entirety, then you’d better be careful where you say it. Utter those words in Russia and you may be heading for prison if Emergency Situations Minister Sergei Shoigu has his way. So-called “liberal president” Dima Medvedev is fully supportive of the effort. In other words Russia won because if you say it lost Russia will erase you. That’s the same technique the wacko Nikita Khruschev used to “bury” the USA!

We’ve addressed this issue before, when Shoigu first made his maniacal statement, but now that Russians are parading nuclear weapons through Red Square to “celebrate” their “victory” in the “GPW,” it’s appropriate to revisit the issue.

Suppose you dare to compare today’s Germany, the “loser,” with today’s Russia, the “winner”? What if you notice that a few decades after its “victory” in the GPW the USSR totally collapsed, and that now Russians have a standard of living so miserable that it is not remotely similar to prosperous Germany (the same is true of France, which surrendered to Hitler), and that Russians don’t rank in the top 120 nations of the world for adult lifespan while Germans rank #24. Suppose you wish to notice that today Germany is one of Europe’s leaders, a member of NATO, a key force in blocking Russian aggression Georgia, exporting a wide variety of respected products to the world while Russia stands utterly alone, exporting nothing but raw materials and befriended only by international pariahs like Syria, Venezuela, Iran and North Korea?

What if you wish to point out that Stalin, who led Russia to “victory” in the GPW, butchered at least as many Russians as the German army?

Try doing any of that in Putin’s Russia and you’ll soon go to prison for three years, plus pay a crippling $10,000 fine (that’s a year and half’s average wages, if you please). Many see this measure, and others like it, as an effort to revive the Soviet dictatorship that only recently collapsed because of such draconian restrictions on civil society.

If you have the temerity to wonder why, if it was really that obvious that Russia won the GPW, the Kremlin would be so afraid of anybody questioning the victory, you’ll likewise get chucked in jail. It’s just a hop, skip and neo-Soviet jump from there, of course to getting sent to prison for making any other type of criticism of Putin’s Russia, the same state of affairs that obtained in the time of the USSR.

Let’s be clear: Very shortly, the things we’ve just written in this editorial will make us criminals in Putin’s Russia. Criminals.

Meanwhile last week, Russia was holding yet another Soviet-style parade of weapons through Red Square in order to celebrate it’s “victory” in the GPW, and playing the tune of the national anthem of the USSR. So-called “president” Dima Medvedev was screeching crazily about how Russia would “teach lessons” to the world with its army. Nuclear weapons, tanks and goose-stepping stormtroopers by the tens of thousands poured into the gigantic square to be reviewed by the proud KGB spy who rules the country, standing next to the tomb of Vladimir Lenin still proudly displayed at the epicenter of the proceedings.

Nobody noticed that the “great victory” of Russian forces in the GPW was followed by the total collapse of Soviet society.

Nobody mentioned the fact that this spy has presided over the loss of 75% of the stock market’s value, half the foreign currency reserves and a third of the national currency’s value. Nobody spoke about the double-digit inflation combined with the double-digit unemployment (Russians can’t even afford Cola-Cola anymore). Nobody discussed the plummeting population, the horrific murder rate, or any of the other massive social failures that have characterized the regime from the beginning. Nobody talked about Russia’s total isolation in the world, its alienation of the nations who should be closest to it (especially Ukraine and Georgia), nor do they mention the collapse of the Russian army from corruption and barbaric cruelty.

Nobody discussed the fact that Russia’s most important “GPW” memorials are neglected and in danger of collapse as Putin squanders resources that could be used to protect them on cold-war rhetoric and provocation, making the Kremlin’s “patriotism” seem hollow and empty indeed.

And nobody, of course, was permitted to point out that Russia’s “liberation” of Eastern Europe from the Nazis resulted in treatment of those nations that was as bad as or even worse than what the Nazis were doing, so that now each and every one of them despises Russia with furious passion.

No, just as in Soviet times the newspapers and even the history books in Russia will say that all is just fine in the paradise that is Vladmir Putin’s Russia. And just as in Soviet times, the records of the rest of the world will tell quite a different story, ending with Russia’s brutal collapse and destruction.

288 responses to “EDITORIAL: Russia Lost the “Great Patriotic War””

Pyrrhic victory. That was the Soviet Victory in WWII, it comes from a story of a Greek king who managed to defeat the invasion force of a far more powerful opponent, but at such great cost to his own nation that it was effectively ruined. He is said to have remarked… “one more victory like this and we shall be ruined.”

When you have a moment quote to me exactly how “ethnic minorities” were over-represented in the Red Army. EVIDENCE, please. You’re a slow learner. Considering that the Great Russians made up at least %62 of the population even in the heyday of the soviet union, and conscription quotas were based on region or oblast’ size, rather than ethnic makeup, your assertion is a blatant numeric impossibility.
Sorry :)

You really get a sense that we threw “men at the problem” in Georgia, considering that we deployed considerably fewer men than the Georgian invasion force did.

By the way, you might note that Stalins order No.277 was never referred to after the first desperate year of the war. After the German ground to a inglorious standstill and started falling back on all fronts, it became a non-issue. When you find evidence that the NKVD engaged in execution of deserters or those retreating after mid-1942 you tell me, but you won’t be finding any. Because after 1942, we didn’t retreat, did we ?

There is another very important (in my opinion) point. the official title of the law is “О противодействии реабилитации на территории независимых государств – бывших республик СССР нацизма, нацистских преступников и их пособников”. “Resisting rehabilitation of Nazism, Nazi criminals and their supporters on the territory of independent states, former USSR republic“.

That is the law explicitly targets foreign citizens. It’s like UK passed a law barring French citizens to dispute British victory in Waterloo. Or Japan passes the law barring residents of Sakhalin and Kuril Islands (“former Japanese territories”) to dispute Japanese victory in Russo-Japanese war. Or you can use your equally absurd examples.

That’s why I keep saying – Rusophile arguments need to be studied by psychiatrists, not debated as if they make sense.

You are right. This law can get foreign citizens in jail in Russia if they call Red Army invaders and not liberators. In other words, people of Baltic states has no longer right to speak about 1940 year according to Russian lawmakers… And I wonder what would happen to those like Meltyukhov, Sokolov and Nevezhin with their theses of Soviet preparations for aggresive war in 1941.

We don’t actually send invitations for everybody who is rehabilitating nazism or rewriting WWII history to visit Russia. So no, that’s not a law against foreign citizens, it’s against cinical (censored) who are talking (censored) about our country and still dare to come here.

About “rehabilitating nazism or rewriting WWII”, I’ve got two questions for you.

1. Was the IIIrd Reich okay when they were still allied with the USSR (and the Allies were “warmongers”), or were they rather not?

2. How much of

“The present situation created by the second imperialist war demands special vigilance from the Soviet state, it demands a farsighted and firm maintenance of the interests and independent policy of the Soviet state. The plans of the British and French imperialists to make the U.S.S.R. a supplier of cannon fodder, to set the U.S.S.R. and Germany at strife, have ended in a fiasco. Instead of going to war with Germany the Soviet Government concluded a non-aggression pact with Germany followed by a treaty of amity. Instead of going to war for imperialist Poland the Soviet people delivered their Ukrainian and Byelo-Russian kindred on Polish territory from the power of the Polish barons and capitalists. Instead of the Baltic countries becoming a vantage-ground for war against the U.S.S.R., mutual assistance pacts were concluded with Esthonia, Latvia and Lithuania. All the plans of the British and French imperialists were upset and frustrated. And when the leaders of Finland, instigated by the British and French, made feverish preparations for war against the U.S.S.R. and provocatively commenced hostilities, the Soviet Government took steps to protect the Soviet border and safeguard Leningrad. (…) When the braves of the Second International, who are bolstering up the imperialist war with an “ideological basis” for the deception of the masses, vociferously demanded that the Soviet Union take up arms to defend the money-bags of the City in London and the Bourse, Comrade Molotov made the following biting retort in his speech on the ratification of the Soviet-German Non-Aggression Pact: “These people positively demand that the U.S.S.R. get herself involved in war against Germany on the side of Great Britain. Have not these rabid warmongers taken leave of their senses? Is it really difficult for these gentlemen to understand the purpose of the Soviet-German Non-Aggression Pact, on the strength of which the U.S.S.R. is not obliged to involve itself in war either on the side of Great Britain against Germany or on the side of Germany against Great Britain? Is it really difficult to understand that the U.S.S.R. is pursuing and will continue to pursue its own independent policy, based on the interests of the peoples of the U.S.S.R. and only on those interests?” Even now this elementary truth has not been understood by the gentlemen who call themselves Socialists and democrats and on these flimsy grounds demand that the peoples of the U.S.S.R. should shed their blood for alien interests. No, gentlemen, pull your own chestnuts out of the fire, there is no cannon-fodder for you in the U.S.S.R. and never will be—that is the answer of the Soviet people voiced by their leaders.”
is still the official line and how much was rewritten?

Yeah. We lost the war and thats why Russia is a German state and the World is controled by Fascism.

Peasants weren’t thrown at the enemy unarmed, you watch too much Enemy Behind the Gates. They threw themselves at the enemy because it wasn’t their lives they wanted to save, they wanted to kill Nazis and thats all that matters.

You won’t understand anything about it because you Capatilists are too pre-occupied with saving your own skins and looking after your selves.

Really?
Actually the poor equipment and abuse by their own side of Soviet troops is well documented.
Machineguns that would be much better used to provide supporting fire to attacking infantry from flanking positions were instead used to machinegun them in the back if they retreated, or in some cases if their attack faltered or was not “pushed with the necessary revolutionary vigour”

Also note, that if it was not for the British Commonwealth Royal Air Force (+RNZAF, RAAF, RCAF, & SAAF), and later the USAAF bombing Germany back to the stone age you would have had the other 80% of the Lufwaffe on the eastern front.
Considering that you had enough trouble with 20% you Russians should be greatful.
In addition we (British Commonwealth) were fighting the Nazi’s from 1939, at which time you Russians were their loyal allies.

Really, the poor equipment is documented. hahah. That’s news to me. Becuse the only thing that I have seen documented is how the Germans had nothing that could even stand up to “poor equipment” like the T-34, which was impervious to German AT fire. Listen, I want to help you out. When commenting about the SEcond World War, you should try not use Hollywood as a primary source. It comes to nought. You can go with the myths or you can go with the truth. The Soviet Union suffered almost 8 million military and 19 million civilian deaths and The Red Army won the war, almost single-handedly. The bulk of the fighting in Europe was on the Eastern Front. In secret, Churchill told FDR in 1941 that the only power on earth that could possibly take on the Wermacht in a war on the continent and have a chance in surviving, let alone winning, was the Red Army. Churchill was right.

Look at the battle statistics. Pay particular attention to places like Stalingrad, Leningrad, Moscow, Kursk, Kharkov and Smolensk. The Soviets faced off against armies numbering from 750,000 to 1.2 million men. The US and UK never went up against such opposition. The elite troops and best commanders of the Wermacht were in the East, and they had the best German equipment. Supplies, reinforcements, fuel, food and spare parts originally allocated for other theaters were quickly diverted to the Russian Front, thus further weakening the already depleted foes the US and UK were fighting.

During 3 weeks of Operation Mars, the Soviets suffered almost as many casualties as did the US in all branches of service in all theaters, including the Atlantic, the Pacific, Africa, Italy, Asia and Europe during the entire war. Over three days at Kursk, the Soviets handed the Germans more casualties than the US or UK suffered in the entire war. Soviet suffered losses at proportions of about three to one, but they were responsible for the vast majority of the 3.8 million German troops dead.

While the Red Army was deciding the outcome of the war at Moscow and Stalingrad, the US and UK were puttering around in North Africa. Rommel, contrary to the propaganda, was not one of Germany’s best field commanders. The elite couldn’t be spared and they were sent East – where they were needed. The Afrika Korps was a hastily thrown together outfit assembled simply because the Italians couldn’t hold Africa. Rommel could not get fuel, spare parts, replacements, supplies or reinforcements. The great battles of North Africa, such as Second Battle of El Alamein, were contested by only a minuscule fraction of the troops as were the battles between the Volga and the Oder. Generally, the Western Allies outnumbered their opposition by about 4 to 1.

By the time the Western Allies hit the beaches of Sicily and Italy; the Soviets had decided the outcome of the war at Stalingrad and were preparing ready to beat the Wermacht into submission at Kursk and Smolensk. After Kursk, the Germans never mounted a serious offensive again and they were steadily beaten back to Berlin. Overlord and Normandy had very little to do with the fall of Berlin or the outcome of the war and by comparison to the major battles of the Eastern Front, it was a small scale operation. Read the numbers in the Orders of Battle for the various fights. The numbers say it all.

I won’t go into the slaughter of the wounded and POWs. The troop deaths were by no means all combat deaths. Suffice it to say that a Russian POW had a very short life expectancy whether he remained in German hands or was returned to the USSR. Disobedience of orders to stand and fight and not retreat or surrender pretty much had to be obeyed. The option was all but certain death in most cases, with many notable exceptions. Of course, Churchill and FDR promised Stalin at Yalta that they would return any Soviet prisoners that they liberated to the USSR, thus making the US/UK hands as bloody as Stalin’s in that regard. The farce of Andrey Vlasov may be helpful to you on that issue.

The Soviets had excellent weapons. The T-34 was the best tank in the field until at least late ’44 and upgrades maintained Soviet tank supremacy well after the war. The Soviets had almost three times as many of them as the Germans had Panthers and Tigers combined. Over about 8 hours at Prokhorovka, during the battle of Kursk, the largest tank battle in history took place and the T-34s, outnumbered by more than 5 to 1, destroyed about half of Germany’s remaining strength of Panzers. The Yakovlev series of “Yak” fighters were among the best planes in the air, as the ME 109s found out time after time. During Prokhorovka, the costliest day of aerial warfare in history took place and the Soviets downed Luftwaffe planes at a kill rate of over 3 to 1. (Of course, the actual casualty figures, especially in tanks and planes, vary with the source of the account. I find the Soviet figures to be generally inflated and the German numbers to be underestimated – which tends to bear out the simple fact that the Red Army made an excellent showing of itself.)

Goebbels and Himmler had run an intelligence operation before, and in anticipation of, Barbarossa. Through propaganda and misinformation, they caused Stalin to purge the Red Army. During the early stages of the war, while the new officer corps was earning its spurs, Soviet losses were high. Soviet tactics left something to be desired, as battle movements were pre-planned and little discretion was left to the field leadership. The Germans were allowed a much freer hand to adapt to conditions. This resulted in unbalanced body counts. When Barbarossa was launched, Stalin was smart enough to realize that he could not defend against blitzkrieg tactics on the plains of the Ukraine, and he was wise enough to realize that he didn’t have to. He ordered a fighting retreat to defensive positions of his choosing and he ordered his commanders to buy him the time he needed to move his factories and production behind the safety of the Urals and to get them into production. At the same time, he constructed his defenses at places like Stalingrad, Moscow and Leningrad. The German onslaught killed tens of thousands, but Stalin’s plan worked. The Germans out-advanced their supply lines and the logistics of continuing the advance were all but impossible. When the Wehrmacht reached the designated areas, they ran into the meat grinder the Eastern Front became. Guys like Zhukov, Vatutin, Konev and Rokossovsky were excellent commanders, every bit the match for their Wehrmacht counterparts, and certainly superior to prima donnas like Patton and Montgomery.

The Western allies delayed opening the second front in Europe until after the Soviets had written the conclusion of the war. Africa and Italy were minor skirmishes by comparison and by the time June 6, 1944 rolled around, the Germans had been in full retreat for more than a year and a half. History proved Churchill to have been correct. It is blatantly obvious why the Soviet death toll was so high. Europe owes the Red Army a debt of gratitude for ending the Thousand Year Reich in a little under four years.

Next time you see the scientific study that shows that a plurality of Europeans passionately want to live in the thousand year Reich and madly desire to be whipped into line or killed execution-style by blonde and blue-eyed taskmasters, you show me. Meanwhile: EVIDENCE – Become a master of it. Don’t just spew forth ideological claptrap that you read out of your high school history text book. Deeply unprofessional.
“Atrocities even worse than the Nazis” ? Evidence? Nope ? Thought so.
” RAF bombing Germany back to the stone age.” Evidence ? Nope. To the contrary, Mass strategic bombing of Germany began in mid to late 1943, when we had already been engaging the Germans for 3 years singlehandedly and you had been having a grand ole’ time hiding away on your island and doing absolutely nothing. (Here, I don’t mean any disrespect to rank and file Britons who suffered through the blitz and came out defiant and unbroken; their sacrifice, along with the titanic battles of the Eastern Front, was one of the most inspiring pages of that era’s history, however,I mean great disrespect to Churchill and other dubious,slippery, characters.) Also, as far as I recall, the “bombing back to the stone” age was marginally effective, killing vast numbers of innocent civilians and doing nothing to stem German war production or military resolve. German war production in the Ruhr and elsewhere continued as before and spiked in some sectors into the last days of the war.

Lastly, Some food for thought: a quote from the book “Russia at war 1941-1945″ written by a Briton, Alexander Werth ” From 1942 on, it was forced onto the strategic defensive contesting the ever increasing numbers of Soviet aircraft. The Luftwaffe’s strength was slowly eroded and by mid 1944 it had virtually disappeared from the skies of Europe leaving the German Army to fight without air support.”

@in mid to late 1943, when we had already been engaging the Germans for 3 years singlehandedly

Yeah. Because the Soviets battled the Germans SO HARD in 1940.

@killing vast numbers of innocent civilians

Were they also so innocent when the glorious Peasant-Worker Army arrived in Germany and started to liberate their personal possessions while killing and raping them in great numbers? But yeah, innocent civilians were killed (not only German, also many forced laborers and such). Anyway, the Soviets also bombed Germany (no, not since 1940, onloy since 1941), they just had crappy Air Force (just like their Navy) so hardly anyone noticed. Btw, this included bombing such “German cities” like the occupied Warsaw, but of course the Allies could be just equally indiscriminate and at the same time could carry so much greater firepower (Caen ’44 being probably the worst case of this). In any case, it was the genial Speer who kept the German war industry running, not the lack of effects (or at least at least until the transportation network was devastated by the attack aircraft too).

@The elite troops and best commanders of the Wermacht were in the East, and they had the best German equipment. Supplies, reinforcements, fuel, food and spare parts originally allocated for other theaters were quickly diverted to the Russian Front, thus further weakening the already depleted foes the US and UK were fighting.

Uh, not. Hitler actually considered the Eastern (Soviet) Front a second priority. Ans as for your claims here, see, for example, the probably most elite of the German divisions: Leibstandarte SS Adolf Hitler. It fought on the Eastern Front, yes – but it also fought in Italy, Normandy, Ardennes. Same for the other most elite divisions like Hermann Goering and so on (Grossdeutschland being the sole exception, but on the other hand you have Panzer Lehr). Afrika Korps was the German most elite army until its almost complete destruction in 1943 (and not the 6th Army destroyed at Stalingrad same year), and it received the best and newest equipment before it went to the East (Tiger tanks and MG-42s were first used there). And for Luftwaffe and Kriegsmarine, Soviet front was just a sideshow.

Stalin was a complete idiot, just like Hitler. A great clash of two mad fools. And Moscow was defended by General Vlasov, of all people. The German onslaught [of 1941] killed millions (not “tens of thousands”), even if you count only Soviet soldiers (and don’t forget the so-called “traitors” who died in captivity). Zhukov was a literally stupid (and uneducated) butcher of his own men, Patton would have shoot him just like he would personally shoot Hitler “like a snake”. And don’t forget that Allies also fought a second war (and not just a front) in the Pacific.

And by “idiots” here I mean their extreme military leadership incompetence, they were obviously smart enought to seize and keep power.

I added “leadership” to military incompetence, because Hitler was actually a fine foot soldier/corporal during WWI (just like Stalin was very good at organizing extremally violent bank robberies in the pre-Bolshevik Russia).

M’Boy, Evidence, evidence, and again evidence. It’s just indispensable if you want to construct an argument that’s even the least bit compelling.

According to you, Hitler considered the Eastern Front a second priority? That must be why he deployed an average of 160 divisions there even after the allied landings in 1944, versus a meager 45-60 divisions in the West. It’s a sure sign that you consider something as a matter of secondary importance when you throw three times the number of divisions at it as you do at your other theaters.. Is it just me, or is your logic terribly skewed in that department ?
Take a look at this. In my experience, it’s the most honest assessment of troop deployments I could find without going to archival sources.http://www.axishistory.com/index.php?id=7288
Furthermore, of those 60 (give or take) divisions in the Western theater, a good 6-8 were Volksturm, or to put it more clearly: old men and young boys with hardly any armor or artillery support, sometimes armed with hopelesly outdated small arms. Surely those must have been the ripest fruits on the tree of the Wermaht. haha. By the way, the remains of Leibstandarte SS AD ended it’s life in Berlin, where most of it’s members were taken prisoner by Red Army units or commited suicide. I would know. My great-grandfather was one of the one’s doing the capturing. Still has 3 trophy iron crosses to prove it.
So, we’ve dismissed your arguments in terms of prioritizing. Now let’s move on to, what is it?, oh that right, the Africa Korps. If you consult some credible history texts, you might just find that the Africa Korps was hastily put together after the Italians badly miscalculated in Northern Africa and Hitler was obliged to bail them out. The Africa Korps was every bit the hastily and shoddily thrown together unit that it had to be considering the time and resources that the Fuhrer had to put it together. The fact that it made a good showing of itself against superior British forces is every bit due to Rommel’s genius as a commander and his ability to use to the best of his ability whatever was given to him. You might recall that at El Alamein, the Korps had to use its 88mm AA guns in place of Anti-tank weapons, because Hitler could not spare sufficient numbers for the African campaign. Finally, with all due respect to the rank and file soldiers who fell in battle there, the African theater never had anything more than tactical importance. It was a skirmish in comparison to, say, the battles of the Eastern Front and had vast bearing on the outcome of the Second World War.

Next, you seem to attempt to dabble in the history of the Luftwaffe a bit. “For the luftwaffe, the eastern front was just a sideshow,” he says. Let me quote from the fine book of Alexander Werth, a Briton, whom I find to be generally reliable as he lived in the Soviet Union during the war years and bases his reports on interviews with rank and file participants and his personal obesrvations. “From 1942 on, it was forced onto the strategic defensive contesting the ever increasing numbers of Soviet aircraft. The Luftwaffe’s strength was slowly eroded and by mid 1944 it had virtually disappeared from the skies of Europe leaving the German Army to fight without air support.”

Next, you seem to make the assertion that Vlasov, bless his soul, defended Moscow all by his little self. Forces under his command had some localized success in the defense of Moscow, but he was hardly instrumental. He was a cog in the great military machine, and no more. You might know, if you had opened a book or read a bio, that Vlasov was put in command of the Second Shock Army on the Volkhov Front and was tasked with the then impossible task of lifting the siege of Leningrad. It was at that point that he defected.

Finally, let us discuss Zhukov, arguably the single greatest military commander of the age of mass mechanized warfare. He rose from peasant roots to plan the most structurally complex and and most stunningly successful operations of modern combat. Did you expect him to get a degree from Harvard while he was growing up in Pre-revolutionary Russia? As for the relationship between him and the men under his command, I’d rather take the word of individual soldiers who were said to have considerable affection toward him, than yours, bigoted and ignorant as it is. Soldiers liked him because he was simple, course, and unassuming, and easily could have been mistaken for one of them if you slapped a helmet on his head and a SMG in his hand.

To conclude, by no means should anyone try to vindicate Stalin, but it is essential to view him for what he was. He blundered and miscalculated heavily at the outset of the war but made up for it through rapid and cool organization or war time industry and a necessarily pragmatic attitude towards the waging of the war as it drew to a close. None of this is to say that he wasn’t a cruel and callous dictator.

Yes, exactly, a secondary priority. Hitler (which as I said was really stupid and always believed he would win the war until its last days when he finally snapped) planned to eliminate the Allies first and the the Soviets second. That’s why half of his tanks were sent to Italy and France (then still peaceful) already in 1943. That’s also why he used his all remaining elite reserves (including 2,000 of the last aircraft just for the initial strike) for the offensive in Ardennes, while Berlin was defended mostly by mentioned Volksturm and by HJ (there were only 800 men from LSSAH in the city, the rest instead surrendered to the British, but there was 40,000 militia – and it’s whom who were “sometimes armed with hopelesly outdated small arms”). Just compare what (especially quality, not numbers) he sent to Ardennes for an offensive (!) and what he sent to the Oder-Neisse line to stop the millions of Soviets and Poles already deep in Germany and now preparing for the final push on Berlin.

Zhukov was a vastly overrated idiot and butcher. You may not subscribe to this point of view, but I don’t really care. Btw, I have much higher opinion about Rokossovsky for example. Yet somehow there’s no such cult of him in Russia. Anyway, Stalin had no shortage of bloody idiots in uniform, with KV at helm, often having them to replace the much more competent commanders he ordered to be shot. I heard this is now called “effective management”?

Oh, and there was just no such thing as “Volksturm divisions”. In fact there were no VS units greater than a battalion. I guess you are thinking now about the Volksgrenadier divisions? Entirely different thing – regular infantry units, not superbly trained but at least very well armed (many StG assualt rifles and such, while the Volksturm militia used stuff like ex-Luftwaffe machineguns, WWI weapons, even hunting rifles).

Also Prokhorovka was a myth. Then you write about how invincible T-34 (avaible from the beginning) was and how many of them were produced, and so on, and somehow the Soviets didn’t win this war quickly and painlessly. I already posted this link here, but it nicely covers both “T-34” and “victory”: http://englishrussia.com/?p=1919 (the flag used by the RF propaganda idiots on the other billboard is actually… Serbian).

Prohorovka was a myth? I’m not even going to waste my breathe talking about that. And Really? You’re using a blunder by a billboard manufacturer to defend a point of military and technological history ? How more incompetent can you get ?
Note, I never made the claim that we won the war quickly and painlessly. However, it is universally recognized that we had some clearly superior technology that served us well. NO one ever said that the T-34 was invincible, only that it was the most effective and durable armored machine of the war.

A final and urgent note: Work on your evidence. Hint: billboards and blogs don’t quite cut it.

Actually SlavRuss2013, you show a basic misunderstanding of military equipment of WW2.

The German 88 came in several versions, those used in North Africa included the FLAK and FLAK/PAK dual purpose guns.

As for one of your more idiotic comments “Mass strategic bombing of Germany began in mid to late 1943”

Wrong again.

Mass Strategic bombing of Germany began much earlier than this, the first 1000 bomber raid was on the night of 30/31st May 1942 against Cologne, and bomber raids of several hundered bombers were taking place from 1941 onwards.

As for your comments about Alexander Werth’s opinions of the Luftwaffe in Russia, well sorry bucko, facts don’t back you up on that one.

The overwhelming majority of Luftwaffe fighters were employed in the defence of the Reich (ie Germany) from 1942 onwards, and if you bother to read any excerpts from German histories they bitterly complain about the fact that the Heer in Russia were stripped of air support due to the haemorraging of the Luftwaffe on the western front.

Also interesting to note that the Luftwaffe experten who created havoc on the eastern front, many claiming more than 100 kills against the extremely poor pilots of the VVS, rapidly became casualties when transferred west.

As for “NO one ever said that the T-34 was invincible, only that it was the most effective and durable armored machine of the war. ”

More rubbish, the T-34 was excellent in 1941 and early42, but you just have to look at the horrific losses suffered by T-34’s from 1942-45 (about 4 T-34’s for each German tank, and most of those were Mk IV’s, a much older design than the T-34 one might add) when compared to the losses suffered by the Germans.

Once the Germans put long barrelled 75’s on the PkWIV and long 50’s on ther PkWIII the T-34 was an easy kill, not to even mention the 88mm of the Tiger, or the HV 75mm of the Panther.

The effectiveness of the T-34 came more from it’s simplicity and ability to be produced (slightly) faster than it was destroyed.

As shown in Korea when it fought against Shermans in terrain that was not suited to vast flanking manouvers, it was really only average to say the least.

I suggest you read “T-34 Mythical Weapon” by Robert Michulec & Miroslav Zientarzewski, which through well researched documentation destroys most of the myths about the T-34.

In addition, the Germans were right on the verge of breakthrough and the annihalation of Soviet forces in the Kursk salient, when Hitler withdrew several Armoured units, including the SS, for transfer to Italy to deal with the Allied invasion.

Also interesting to note that, while there were more INFANTRY divisions in Russia (simply due to the huge operating area) fully half of the Heers armoured forces were in France and Italy from 1943-45.

In the end however, nobody won the war singlehandedly.

Without the USSR the western allies would have taken far far longer to defeat Germany, however, without the western allies (you do realise that a vast number of the tanks used by Russia were supplied by the UK/US under lend lease, as were vital components such as ball bearings and armour plate which Russia was, shall we say, not particularly good at manufacturing at high quality standards) tieing down and then annihalating the Luftwaffe with strategic bombing, severley damaging the German ability to produce weapons by enforcing the dispersal of production (which did have a huge effect on the German war effort), tying down tens of thousands of FLAK 88’s and other large calibre guns and over 200,000 men that could have been sent east, and then forcing the commitment of 50% of the Germans armoured forces, Russia would have been screwed.

In addition, idiotruss2013 has obviously forgotten that victory in North Africa would have given the Germans a direct access to the Suez canal, middle eastern oil, and a direct path into the Caucasus from the south, cutting off the direct supply of war material to Russia (see all the photos of Georgian and Chechen Red Army troops defending the Cucasus mountain passes using British supplied Valentine tanks and Churchills etc for details of how important this aid was.

This doesn’t even merit a response. Actually, it does. Ever heard of the British Free Corps… or Panzergrenadier Division Nordland ? Get your own Hitlerite collaborators sorted out, and then start talking about ours.

Do you think we get our facts from movies? What do you think we are? Russians?
Please! Here in the West we have these things called “schools” and “books”.
Now, I know you think you also have those on Russia but the difference between yours and ours is that, for us, the former are used to educate, not indoctrinate and the latter contain information, not propaganda.
That is one of the reasons we in the West can freely admit that the Vietnam war was a failure both for France and the US.
That’s why, even now, people in the US have the courage to criticise its own government about the Irak War, something unthinkable in good ole’ brain-washed Russia.

I find it, however, amusing that you assume self-preservation is a bad thing.
You don’t get it because you are a mindless drone but initiative and self preservation are what made British Battlegroups formidable fightings unit even when our officers werew killed (unlike Russian units, which surrendered or became erratic when grunts like you lost their commanding officers and no longer had anyone to do the thinking for them).
Even today, a British soldier is worth at least a 100 of his Russian counterparts.

Now, I am biased of course so let’s mention another example… one that does not involve us Brits:
Does the name Simo Häyhä mean anything to you ? I doubt it but let me educate you:
He was just one of the mere 250, 000 Finns who had the 1000,000 Russians running in circles like headless chicken during the Winter War.
He alone is accounted for killing 705 of your compatriots in little more than 3 months yet he lived to celebrate his 96th birthday thanks to his sense of self-preservation… not bad for the soldier with the most confirmed kills record in the history of warfare, right?

Pavlov, you were a grunt at best. You claim you can only know about war because you were in the frontline but your fail to understand that closeness muddles perception. You can’t see the forest for the trees and that is why, my illiterate Russian drone, there is a chain of command and foot-soldiers are seldom privy to logistical information and the Order of Battle.

You really doubt it is logistics that wins or loses wars? Here’s another example (this one, a little closer to my heart):
The Celts were (with, perhaps, the exception of the Zulus) the fiercest warriors ever to walk the Earth. They were taller, stronger, better trained and braver than any other contemporary group of people.
They also had little regard for their own lives and showed no sense of self-preservation whatsoever, which should make them agreeable to you.
How,then, could the Celts be defeated by the shorter, weaker and less-courageous Romans?
There is a simple explanation: discipline and logistics. Had Caesar failed to capture Avaricum and resupply his troops, the Gauls might have won the war but it wasn’t meant to be: the superior logistic structure of the Roman Legions, with its emphasis on communication and supply lines proved too much for even the bravest and most rugged of enemies.

You as a Russian should understand this better than anyone else: the Hordes managed to conquer your land and keep it under control for centuries because of their mobility and logistic nous.
Even your own so-called victory in Угорщина would not have happened had Akhmat Khan’s been able to communicate better with Casimir IV.
A few centuries later, Napoleon defeated EVERY single Russian army that stood on his way and only failed to conquer Russia because of the scorched earth policy (the consequences of which, incidentally, were far more devastating for the Russian peasantry in the long run than for the Grand Armée itself but that’s Russia for you: save the motherland even if it means killing the last Russian… man, woman or child.)

You owe your existence to logistics yet you deny it.
Your own idiocy will condemn you.

By the way, I have yet to see one of your precious books that mentions the fact that your brutal neo-colonial killing machine was completely out-fought by a handful of determined freedom fighters. All of them seem to say something along the lines of “you know, children, we just left Vietnam, we just left, and there was nothing else to it.” Also, I hardly think that there’s a history book that mentions how the US and UK adopted the Atlantic Charter, which promised freedom to all colonial territories, and then attempted to wage a war to subjugate France’s colonial possessions.
It there a history book that mentions the Jupiter Missiles that Kennedy deployed in Turkey to start the Cuban Missile Crisis ? How about a history book that mentions how the CIA trained death squads to murder innocents in Nicaragua ? How about a History book that admits that most of the hostages taken in Tehran during the Iranian hostage crisis were CIA operatives trying to keep a brutal and sadistic regime in power ?A book talking about how Kissinger and his buddies brought Pinochet to power in Chile and watched him murder 30,000 of his countrymen ? A history book that mentions how Reagan and Bush the elder sponsored Saddam Hussein and Sold him chemical weapons ? Nope. All of these history books have yet to come off the printing press. Meanwhile, we in Russia have “books” and “schools” where we vigorously debate the cold war history of the Soviet State including its crimes in Prague and Hungary. Russia 1:0 US. Enough said.

“dozens of books” written about western crimes and atrocities. Name one. Please do.
As I said before, the Cold War History of the Soviet Union is common knowledge the world over, while the Cold War history of the other former Superpower is sanitized with great dedication, lest the sheeple discover that the US is not the Champion of democracy and human rights that it claims to be. Those who try to broach US support fot genocidal regimes and other sorrowful pages of history are woefully marginalized. I have literally met Americans who think that Iranians took US hostages because the Iranian people are just uncivilized, uneducated barbarians.

@“dozens of books” written about western crimes and atrocities. Name one. Please do.

You’ve got to be kidding me.

OK:
-Michael Bilton, Kevin Sim, Four Hours in My Lai
-James Stuart Olson, Randy Roberts, My Lai: A Brief History with Documents
-David L. Anderson, Facing My Lai: Moving Beyond the Massacre
-Kendrick Oliver, The My Lai Massacre in American History and Memory
-William R. Peers, The My Lai Inquiry (official investigation report)
-Heonik Kwon, After the Massacre: Commemoration and Consolation in My Lai
-Michal R. Belknap, The Vietnam War on Trial: The My Lai Massacre and the Court-martial
-Trent Angers, The forgotten Hero of My Lai: The Hugh Thompson Story
-Peter Goldman, Tony Fuller, Charlie Company
-Norman G. Cooper, My Lai and Military Justice: To What Effect?
-Richard Ryan, From My Lai the Thunder Went West
-Larry James Winn, My Lai: Birth and Death of a Rhetorical Symbol
-Richard Hammer, The court-martial of Lt. Calley‎
-Peter A. French, Individual and Collective responsibility: Massacre at My Lai
…and this just an incomplete list of English language books dedicated to just one incident. So it’s more like “thousands of books”.

So, what now? And how many Russian books there are on Samashki, except this Memorial report ( http://www.memo.ru/hr/hotpoints/chechen/samashki/engl/index.htm )? And whoever was court-martialed for the murder of more than 100 Russian (not even foreign) citiziens there? Any commemorations, for example in 2005 on the 10th annniversary? Yes, it’s all just a rhetorical questions, I know the answers very well.

You’re all afraid of the Russians. You should be ashamed. By your logic, America won the Vietnam war because they killed more than they lost. Cities and lives are irrellevant compared to the survival of a country. If you put too much emphasis on protecting your people, you will lose your country.

Actually, the US Iraq motto is rather (and quite famously) “we don’t do body counts” (Gen. Franks) or “we don’t do body counts on other people” (Rumsfeld) .

An another quote, by another American general, this time from WWII: “No poor bastard ever won a war by dying for his country. He won it by making other bastards die for their country.” (That’s for ‘Sila Slav’ who actually wrote: “These dead soldiers won the war.”)

Accordingly, a major difference between the USA and the USSR ’45 is that a large part of the US population was simply not killed-off in this war (and no, there’s nothing to be proud of your huge losses – rather something to despair).

If Russia won or lost the second World War is a rather senseless discussion: if your enemy surrenders unconditionally to you while you occupy the capital and, together with your allies, the whole country, then by all definitons you have won the war. It’s crazy to question that, but it’s even more crazy, even criminal, to try to supress such views.

What should be discussed is not the end of the war but the beginning. Who started the war? The war in Europe started in September 1939. The reason was that France and Great-Britain guaranteed the sovereignty of Poland – so once Poland was attacked, both counties were automatically at war with the invaders. Who invaded Poland? On September 1st Poland was invaded by Germany, followed on September 17th by the USSR.

The USSR invasion of Poland was agreed upon in the Molotov-Ribbentrop pact, signed in August 1939. What happened after the USSR invaded Poland? Large parts of Poland were annexed by the USSR (these parts are now on the territory of Belarussia and Ukraine – unlike the parts that were annexed by Germany, Poland lost these lands forever), tens of thousands Polish citizens, if not more, were deported. The upper strata of the society (and with upper strata the KGB also meant teachers, owners of little businesses, independent farmers…) were quasi eliminated, a good part litteraly executed and their families deported to Northeast Siberia).

The USSR also exchanged prisoners with nazi-Germany: all prisoners and refugees who lived on German occupied territory but fled to Soviet territory during the war days in September were sent back, including Jews and Polish communists. The KGB went even as far as sending back German communists living in the Soviet Union. This is the best evidence that nazi-Germany and were rather close allies and that the Molotov-Ribbentrop pact was much more than a defensive act of the Soviet Union, as official Russian doctrine later explained.

After the invasion of Poland, the USSR could carry on undisturbed with occupying it’s agreed upon sphere of influence: Karelia, the Baltic states, Bessarabia, Bukowina. And what was also going on, was that the Soviet Union was shipping goods to Germany, effectively breaking the British sea blockade of Germany. In the first year after the invasion of Poland, Germany received one million tons of cereals, half a million tons of wheat, 900,000 tons of oil, 100,000 tons of cotton, 500,000 tons of phosphates. Without that, an invasion of Northern and Western Europe, a war in North-Africa, the invasion of Yougoslavia and Greece would not have been possible. The Germans litteraly marched through France with Russian bread in their stomachs and Russian petrol in their tanks.

The Soviet Union entering the war in June 1941 was not so mucht a case of the USSR trying to liberate the world from nazism – if they wouldn’t have been attacked they couldn’t have cared less and wouldn’t have lift a finger to oppose nazi-Germany. It was a case of breaking up a strong alliance and the one attacking the other. In view of the ideology and the expansionist plans of both a rather predictable event, one might add.

Instead of glorifying the USSR’s war effort, it would be better to question the responsibility of the Soviet Union in the outbreak of World War II. It is obvious that together with nazi Germany the Soviet Union carries a large responsibility. One can certainly say that the Soviet responisiblity for the outbreak of the war is much higher than that of that other German ally, Italy. A shared responsibility means that Russia should be careful in trying to ask the world’s respect because of it’s massive amount of war victims. The world should show the same consideration to Soviet military causalties as it shows to German military casualties. Any sympathy for these casualties exceeding the sympathy for German casualties is out of place, especially viewing the Russian behaviour in occupied territories, both in 1939-1941 and after 1944.

If there is one thing Russia should do instead of bragging about it’s victory and bullying everyone they think is not showing enough respect for this victory, is apologise. Russia should apologies to Poland, the Baltic states, Finland, Romania and so on. It should apologise to the Jews for not only not lifting a finger to prevent the Holocaust when it was possible (the Holocaust actually started before the German invasion of the USSR) but especially for delivering tens of thousands of Jews in the hands of the Germans after the victory over Poland. The day Russia shows the same shame about it’s history as Germany does, that is the day Russia will be accepted as a normal country.

Yes, why didn’t the Soviet Union react on that one, why didn’t they honour their agreement they had to guarnatee Czechoslovak soveriegnty togehter with France? Why did they let the Czechoslovak government clearly understand they wouldn’t get any help from the Soviet Union, as is specified in the telegrams between Moscow and the Soviet embassy in Prague? Apparently, Stalin was especially dismayed that he was not sitting on the negotiating table and that the war in the West did not break out.

Betrayal? I’m from Czech republic and I don’t feel betrayed by France or Great Britain, because Czechoslovakia has no treaty of alliance signed with either of them. It was our own diplomacy failures which led to German occupation. Our nation spend huge money in the post-WWI period on defense structures around most of the country and then choose to give them away without a single shot fired. We can hardly blame others for this..

Russia did not manage to beat the Germans on its own either.
Lets see, Luftwaffe 80% on the western front.
German Navy 95% on the western front.
Russians fed by US & UK.
90% of Russian military transport US made GMC trucks.
VERY large numbers of US & UK made aircraft and tanks used by front line Russian troops.
Zhukov stated that there were only 3 important battles in WW2, The battle of Britain (1940), the battle of El Almein, and the battle of Stalingrad.
Russia was only involved in ONE of them.
US & British commonwealth forces took more prisoners in Tunisia that Zhukov took at Stalingrad.

*90% of Russian military transport US made GMC trucks.*
Lie! 90% of Katusha’s rocket tracks were GMC – true. Not all transport, dear )))))
the main transport was “palutorka” ))) Land-lease to learn more.
“Zhukov stated that there were only 3 important battles in WW2, The battle of Britain (1940), the battle of El Almein, and the battle of Stalingrad.” He just want to amuse your pride.
There were too many battles much more terrible and big then even Stalingrad:
for Moscow, Sevastopol (twice), Kursk, and Grate-Luki (Velikie Luki) in some of them, like in Luki more people dead then in even in Stalingad.
That all show that you know nothing about this war. It’s better to learn own history, then ours.

How about quoting the “very large numbers of US and UK aircraft and tanks” used by the Red Army. ?

Also, how about remembering that we sistematically encircled and ground down a 600,00 man force at Stalingrad. The German forces in Tunisia numbered maybe 10 divisions at most. So, in pure number terms, we killed some 500,000 Germans and took 91,000 prisoners, you took maybe 95,000-100,000 people prisoner in Africa. That, my friend, is called taking things out of context. Your rant proves nothing.

German losses at Stalingrad were staggering. The Sixth Army, under the command of Field Marshal Friedrich Paulus, began its campaign with 600,000 soldiers. On Jan. 31, 1943, Paulus disobeyed Hitler and surrendered. On February 2 the last of his remaining 91,000 troops turned themselves over to the Soviets. The Soviets recovered 250,000 German and Romanian corpses in and around Stalingrad and total Axis losses (Germans, Romanians, Italians, and Hungarians) are estimated to have been 841,000 dead. Of those taken captive, only 6,000 lived to return to their homeland.

Kindly name the components of the 6th army which lived to fight another day. I’d like formation names, commanders and where exactly they lived to fight another day. Unless of course you mean that handful of German wounded that Goering was able to evacuate before the Red Army hammered his pathetic air corridor shut. Or is there are army of undead zombies walking around there somewherer to this day. Ughhh. That does sound like a scary prospect.

We “estimate” 600,000 based on the fact that the army was 600,000 strong and none of it made it out. That;s anybodies definition of an iron-clad “estimate.” Once again, you fail miserable to name but one 6th army unit that was not in the city. Please, come back when you have evidence. Then I might listen to your claptrap.

German losses in Stalingrad pocket were up to 300,000 total (this including the 25,000 who were wounded and evacuated), but this number does not include the Romanians and Soviet defectors (Hiwis). Also Italian 8th Army lost 85,000 men and Hungarian 2nd Army suffered very heavy losses as well.

Anyway, for example the Italian losses in the campaign were lower than in Operation Compass – which costed the British forces only 500 men killed… I guess the Russians are proud of Stalinists’ victory in some strange masochistic way, becuase they achieved it the hard way. Like this “like the T-34, which was impervious to German AT fire” and still the Germans somehow destroyed many thousands of them, and the other such extreme losses despite the odds. They should be rather outraged.

Btw,

@The Soviet Union suffered almost 8 million military and 19 million civilian deaths

I see the 3 million dead POW “traitors” are still down the memory hole. Or maybe are they included in your “civilian deaths” (quite high) or something?

“The Allied victory in North Africa destroyed or neutralized nearly 900,000 German and Italian troops, opened a second front against the Axis, permitted the invasion of Sicily and the Italian mainland in the summer of 1943, and removed the Axis threat to the oilfields of the Middle East and to British supply lines to Asia and Africa. It was critically important to the course of World War II. ”

Yes, we Russians will leave it to you Westerners to understand how to be humane (Dresden, Falujjah, Serbia, Vietnam. Nicaragua, Hiroshima, Nagasaki) Yep, that there is a fine record of flawless western humanity.
We must give special recognition to the tools of Euro-Atlantic humanty (Depleted Uranium, VX gas, White Phosphorus, The IDF etc.)
Cheers, Let’s raise our glasses to those humane enough that they think themselves capable of instructing others in humanity.

Yes, and we westerners leave you Russians the proud tradition of the Gulags (61,000,000 civillians murdered), the killing fields in Cambodia, the spread of the cancer of communism that killed 144,000,000 people in the 20th century.
We give you the communist terror in eastern Europe, the supply of weapons to terror groups in the 70’s and 80’s, the training and instruction in mass murder to communist groups in the Congo, central and south America.

The there is the genocide against the Chechens, the invasions of Czecheslovakia and Hungary, ethnic cleansing in the caucasus…..

This is just only one guy’s estimate (R. J. Rummel’s) and it covered all kinds of “democide” deaths in or caused by the Soviet Union (not only civilians). Anyway,

Perhaps the sheer scale of the horror makes ordinary Russians uncomfortable. Anne Applebaum, in her meticulously documented and dispassionately written Gulag: A History of the Soviet Camps (Penguin/Allen Lane; 610 pages), estimates that 18 million people passed through the camps between 1929 and 1953. Nobody knows how many died, though she offers, “reluctantly” the almost certainly low official figure of 2.7 million camp deaths. This does not include those who died in the other chapters of Soviet terror — man-made famine in Ukraine, collectivization, the executions during the purge years and civil war. A low estimate for the total death toll is around 10 million.http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,461802,00.html

Yeah, Anne gets it about right, I’d say. 2.7 to 3.2 is the only figure that can actually be documented. As for Mr. R.J. Rumels grasp of the fine skill of extrapolation, hands down to him. I’d like to see his sources. Please, don’t give me any of the “man-made famine in Ukraine”. If you do, please do mention that the man made famine killed at least a million people each in Belarus, Kazakhstan, the Urals, and Central Russia. I don’t give a rats ass about estimates of the death toll, I care about the documented numbers. Some estimates place the Vietnamese civilian death toll at 7,000,000.

About the famine, have you ever heard of Associate professor Mark Tauger. I highly recommend his writings.

Taking prisoners is risky to your own troops. I’m not Russian (I doubt anyone criticizing them is) and I would rather massacre an enemy army than take them. They could escape and cause real harm on your troops and a prison camp makes a real juicy target.

What these figures mean when broken down into specific items may be seen from the following statistics on the Soviet Union.

By the end of June 1944 the United States had sent to the Soviets under lend-lease more than 11,000 planes; over 6,000 tanks and tank destroyers; and 300,000 trucks and other military vehicles.

Many of the planes have been flown directly from the United States to the Soviet Union over the northern route via Alaska and Siberia, others were crated and shipped to the Persian Gulf, where they were assembled and flown into Russia.

We have also sent to the Soviets about 350 locomotives, 1,640 flat cars, and close to half a million tons of rails and accessories, axles, and wheels, all for the improvement of the railways feeding the Red armies on the Eastern Front. For the armies themselves we have sent miles of field telephone wire, thousands of telephones, and many thousands of tons of explosives. And we have also provided machine tools and other equipment to help the Russians manufacture their own planes, guns, shells, and bombs.

We have supplied our allies with large quantities of food. The Soviet Union alone has received some 3,000,000 tons. Lend-lease has contributed about 10 percent of Britain’s over-all food supply. This, together with a great increase in agricultural production in the British Isles, has helped to feed the British civilians and armed forces. Bread, potatoes, carrots, cabbage, and other common vegetables have been available to the British from their home gardens and farms. The United States has provided a high proportion of such foods as bacon, eggs, cheese, and fruit juices.

In addition to the aircraft deliveries American Lend-lease deliveries to Russia included also more than 400.000 trucks, over 12.000 tanks and other combat vehicles, 32.000 motorcycles, 13.000 locomotives and railway cars, 8.000 anti-aircraft cannons and machine-guns, 135.000 submachine guns, 300.000 tons of explosives, 40.000 field radios, some 400 radar systems, 400.000 metal cutting machi­ne tools, several million tons of foodstuff, steel, other metals, oil and gasoline, chemicals etc.

Regardless of Soviet cold-war attempts to forget (or at least diminish) the importance of Lend-lease, the total impact of the Lend-Lease shipment for the Soviet war effort and entire national economy can only be characterized as both dramatic and of decisive importance. The outcome of the war on the East front might well have taken another path without Lend-lease. There were undoubtedly big difficulties in the early period: aircraft modified for tropical conditions were delivered to Arctic ports, Russian-language instructions were lacking, a big number of aircraft were grounded because of lack of spa­res, ammunition, bombs or high-octane fuel. Soon many technical problems ‘were overcome, Soviet guns and bomb racks were installed, and numerous other technical improvisa­tions were made in Soviet AF frontal units. Soviet specialists developed also ingenious technical improvements and modifi­cations of the original aircraft versions. In parallel the new American technology was systematically investigated in research and design institutes, and the total impact for the modernization of the Soviet aviation industry was certainly immense. The ultimate peak of this learning process was the post-war copying of the Boeing B-29 in only two years time, resulting in the Soviet nuclear-bomb carrier Tu-4.

Lend-lease aircraft amounted to 18% of all aircraft in the Soviet air forces, 20% of all bombers, and 16-23% of all fighters (numbers vary depending on calculation methods), and 29% of all naval aircraft. In some AF commands and fronts the proportion of Lend-Lease aircraft was even higher: of the 9.888 fighters delivered to the air defense (PVO) fighter units in 1941-45 6.953 (or over 70%!) were British or American. In the AF of the Karelian front lend-lease aircraft amounted to about two-thirds of all combat aircraft in 1942-43, practically all torpedo bombers of the naval air forces were A-20G Bostons in 1944-45 etc.

Some American aircraft types were simply irreplaceable and very highly appreciated on all levels during the war, e.g. P-39 Airacobra fighters, A-20 Boston and B-25 Mitchell bombers and C-47 transport aircraft.

Several Soviet aces scored more than 40 victories with Airacobras. G.A.Rechkalov’s 50 victories are apparently the highest score ever with an American fighter, while the No.2 Soviet ace A.I.Pokryshkin claimed 48 of his 59 victories when flying Airacobras.

In fact it is obvious who’s tribute was decisive in winning the Second World War: the British and French were fighting Germany since 1939. Even when they are joined by several other European countries, they are not able to defeat Germany. In june 1941 the USSR enters the war with Germany, but still no defeat of the Germans. A few months later, the Unites States enter the war with Germany – and no Germany is still ot beaten. The longer the war takes, ever more countries are declaring war on Germany, without any result. The Germans simply keep fighting. And then comes April 11th, 1945: Chile declares war on Germany. Less than four weeks later, Germany surrenders unconditionally. So who won the war? It is obvious; Chile!

“Lend-lease aircraft amounted to 18% of all aircraft in the Soviet air forces, 20% of all bombers, and 16-23% of all fighters (numbers vary depending on calculation methods), and 29% of all naval aircraft.”

So, what we see? Lend-lease aircraft < 20%.
And I see even no attempt of comparison for: tanks, artillery, etc. — because these numbers will be ever less favourable for “lend-lease”.

Dude… 6,000 tanks (not a priority, but anyway) “not a very large number” to you?

The Germans produced only 25,000 or so tanks of all types FOR THE ENTIRE WWII (including the pre-war production), for all of the fronts and campaigns. Preparing for the Operation Barbarossa (the planned conquest of the USSR), they massed… 3,600.

20% is one in 5.
And the aircraft in question were preferred by Russian aces.
You miss the bit where it says “In the AF of the Karelian front lend-lease aircraft amounted to about two-thirds of all combat aircraft in 1942-43, practically all torpedo bombers of the naval air forces were A-20G Bostons in 1944-45 etc.”

Considering how many Russian made aircraft were destroyed, 20% is a big difference.

For example, the USSR was highly dependent on trains, yet the desperate need to produce weapons meant that only about 92 locomotives were produced in the USSR during the entire war. In this context, the supply of 1,981 US locomotives can be better understood. Likewise, the Soviet air force was enhanced by 18,700 aircraft, which amounted to about 14% of Soviet aircraft production (19% for military aircraft).[6]

Although most Red Army tank units were equipped with Soviet-built tanks, their logistical support was provided by hundreds of thousands of US-made trucks. Indeed by 1945 nearly two-thirds of the truck strength of the Red Army was U.S.-built. Trucks such as the Dodge ¾ ton and Studebaker 2.5 ton, were easily the best trucks available in their class on either side on the Eastern Front.[7] US supplies of telephone cable, aluminium, canned rations and fur boots were also critical, the latter providing a crucial advantage in the winter defence of Moscow[citation needed].

As said above: approx. 20% of mil. aircraft + locomotives and trucks, like Studebaker.
Thanks a lot. :) But, wars are not won by trucks.

Well actually Trilirium, thats where you are wrong.
It is logistics that win wars in the 20th C.
Without the trucks, trains, and supplies the Russian army would have been:
1. Immobile, or reduced to moving its supplies by manpower alone.
2. Starving.
3. Out of Gas.
4. Out of reinforcements
5. Out of Ammo.

Obviously you have a very limited understanding of the mechanics of war.

Without efficient and effective supply lines, no army in WW2 was effective.

Perfect. Imagine this situation: you have perfectly planned logistics, *lots* of locomotives and trucks… but no bullets, shells or bombs.
I’m afraid, all you trucks will become enemy’s trophy extremely soon.

Um, how do you get “bullets, shells or bombs” to the frontline without trains and trucks and fuel?

See the German problems in late war when they had no fuel and no effective transport means (US attack aircraft strafing everything that moved in the rear), even as Speer still had the arms factories running in spite of strategic bombing.

Take Battle of the Bulge for example – “all you[r] tanks will become [the] enemy’s trophy extremely soon”, because they were simply run out of gas.

Without supply, your tankers are sitting in a big steel coffin.
Or the tank is sitting in the factory, or the factory is unable to produce the tank because they have no materials.
It is a fact of WW2, that production of war materials and supply were the most important factor in victory.
Without the mass industrialisation and logistical systems that supported the men, armed them fed them, and kept them supplied at the front line, there would be no victory.

Here are the options for Russia and US/NATO, we never fight directly but only through proxy wars just as we did in the last century. Or we move past that. If we fight directly there is no winner. The wars that will be fought in the 21st century will require logistics as stated. These are going to be very different types of wars. A war, like that which was fought in World War II is not a winnable war in this century. The US has extremely advanced logistics and that was proved in Iraq-I and Iraq-II. We are moving away from manned aviation toward drones. Russia languishes in these areas, that’s why they went to Israel to buy drones, the same kind that was used by Georgia against Russia during Russia’s invasion into Georgia. Russia and Russians need to get over themselves, if they go up against a country bigger than Georgia they will have heavy losses. Yes we all know that Russia has nuclear bombs, but Russia can not use these without risking total destruction. So, What is Russia’s choice, develop modern conventional weapons or use your nukes and be removed from the planet.

A good option for Russia would be something they tried never before in their history: diplomacy, international cooperation, economic and cultural influence (and that means much more than just selling gas and buying villa’s in the south of France with the earned money)… Their prestige, internatnional standing, influence and power would be much bigger now if they had chosen this way instead of toying with gas deliveries and fighting in the Caucasus. But of course, for that you need talented politicians.

I’m sorry, but “tried never before in their history” is too far from a truth. But in any times it’s really hard to be friendly when nobody around you can believe in it.

Soviet period is a very discussable time in russian history, but russian history didn’t begin in 1917. And, of course, even in Russia, Stalin’s govering is a very dramatic point.

In 198x’s freedom and peace were a dream of a lot of people in Russia. In 199x’s there was a really good chance to build a normal relations with West and Russia, but US, EU and NATO as a military alliance preferred to suppress all kind of russian presence everythere. So, in 200x we have new stage of hostility.

RF really needs talent politicians, but also it needs in understanding.

To trilirium
Most important thing about lend-lease amounts is not how much, but when!!! As I once read(I think you can find in wikipedia) that at most critical point in war for USSR lend-lease made major part of armament. And it is much less important how much it made in all WWII. Weapons and vehicles are one, but food is most important.
About logistics – my best friend told that he was taught in senior officers course (at history of warfare) that Germans lost Battle of Kursk because they run out of fuel.
P.S.
I`m belive that USSR/Stalin planned to invade whole Europe and Hitler(knew it) made his attack only few weeks early.

Wow! almost 70 comments, and most of them completely unrelated to the topic of the article :)
The article isn’t about the role of lend-lease in the Soviet victory – reasonable people can disagree on that, and history doesn’t have “what if” clause.

For me, the question of WW2 results can be summed thus. With the hindsight knowledge, if you were a baby born on May 10, 1945 – would you want to be born in victorious USSR, or in loser Germany? I would like to hear “unkneeling Russians” to explain why the answer should be “in the victorious USSR”. And if the answer is “in loser Germany” – then WW2 was just a battle in the eternal war of civilizations. One despot (Stalin) won the battle and remained in the gutter; another despot (Hitler) lost a battle and the country was able to move to the civilized world, and the civilized world (UK, US) won the battle – although with some losses (Eastern Europe), – and was able to retain the Western civilization.

As I said before, the law itself is more interesting for its judicial absurdity, than for anything else

Reading this post was just stupid, scorched earth strategy worked didn’t it?
And everytime a country Germany had such an embarrassing defeat they always blamed the weather.
Like when Spain claimed that the Spanish Armada was destroyed by a storm rather then the British.

These dead soldiers won the war. Who the hell even questions that? If you are so stupid as to question the role of the veterans then you deserve to go to jail. Even if you are a foreigner. Get the hell out of Russia stop pissing people off.

“These dead soldiers won the war. Who the hell even questions that? If you are so stupid as to question the role of the veterans then you deserve to go to jail.”

OK. Let’s precise this, because I don’t want to “go to jail”.

Did you mean the role of the veterans of the Nazi-Soviet invasion of Poland? Or rather the veterans who were jailed after the war, because of their supposed crime of being taken prisoner and surviving the captivity (their roles in the war apparently pretty questionable)? Or maybe rather the Soviet war invalids (do you even know their fate after the war)?

Do you include the surviving members of the Russian Liberation Army, or maybe rather the members of the NKVD who had worked together with the Gestapo in supressing the Polish resistance in 1940-41?

If the soldier was first the Soviet soldier, taken prisoner (traitor already), joined the SD (the SS security forces, burning Belarussian villages for the Nazis, for example under Vladimir Gil – LATER awarded the Order of the Red Star), and then deserted to the Soviet (or French) partisans to fight the Germans again, is his role questionable or not?

First, the Russian name for it is The Great Homeland War, not “patriotic” anything. And it was just that, the war for the Homeland – for Life.

Second, to say that what Soviet rule did to Eastern Europe is “worse than Nazis” is false and morally bankrupt statement.

Third, the failure of the Soviet regime has nothing to do with how much phyrric its victory – yes, victory – over Nazi Germany was. And the German recovery has much to do with the American rebuilding of it with the Marshall plan, nurturing an anti-Soviet ally in the cold war, letting it easy after the Evil that it did – the contry AND its people.

The human decency would demand Germany turned into agrarian wasteland after what they did, not nurtured back to power by the US, providing cover for all the Germany’s crypto-Nazis and ex-SS-men after the war.

The Soviet victory over Nazi Germany is ONE thing that is Holy in its history. Leave it be that which it is – the Holy victory over the forces of pure Evil.

In that case I wonder what should have happened with Russia after:
– the executions of more than 300 000 by the Cheka in its first years of existence
– the death of a few million people during the reign of Lenin by executions, deportations concentration camps
– the victims of the Holodomor: several millions (estimates range from 6 to 10 million) Ukrainians in an organised famine, an act of genocide
– the genocide on the Polish people living in the Soviet Union in 1937 (110 000 executed, 30 000 deported)
– the deportation of 170 000 Koreans living near the border in 1937
– the death of 1 million Soviet citizens during the Great Purges 1937-1938
– the murder of Polish prisoners of war (100 000) and the deportation of 1,5 million people from occupied Poland, of whom most didn’t return, after the Soviet invasion of Poland in 1939
– the deportation and execution of 125 000 people from the Baltic states after the annexation in 1940-1941
– the deportation of 400 000 Romanians and others from Bessarabia and Bukowina after 1941
– the deportation of 2 million Crimean Tatars, Volga Germans, Kalmyks, Chechens, Ingush, Balkars, Karachyas, Meshketian Turks and other smaller groups during the war. Some 30% to 50% of them didn’t survive. This is by all definitions an act of genocide
– the mass rape of Polish women and the systematic plunder by Russian soldiers during the advance through Poland in 1944
– the deportation of 200 000 people from the Baltic states after the war and the inprisonment of not less than 10 % of the Baltic population
– the deportation of a few hundred thousand Germans from Prussia and ethnic Germans from Romania and Hungary after the war
– the deportation of 1,5 million Russian soldiers, former German war prisoners to concentration camps
– the deportation, execution and inprisonment of hundreds of thousands people in both the occupied and liberated countries after 1944
– the deportation to Siberian concentration camps of millions of Soviet and non-Soviet citizens during the whole reign of Stalin
– the death of 1 million Afghans as a result of the Soviet invasion and occupation 1980-1989
– the death of 100 000 Chechens during the two Chechen wars 1994-1996 and 1999-2009

And this list is not complete. So the victory over pure evil (wiht which the Soviet Union was happily collaborating until june 1941) was clearly the work of something even worse than pure evil. Instead of mythology, Russian could use some history.

3.5 million according to The Institute of Demography of Social Studies at the National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine in 2008:

“It was determined that 3.5 million people died of hunger in Ukraine in 1932-1933. The researchers found out that the number of the victims in March-July of 1933 was equal to the number of those died in the previous five years. Kiev, Kharkov, Vinnitsa, Chernigov, Odessa and Moldova Autonomous Republic suffered most during Holodomor.”

Estimates – because with famine it is always difficult to estimate the amount of victims, especially when the whole thing is covered up – range from a few million to much more. A few examples:

– as you point out, demographical studies point to 3.5 million deaths
– Stalin quoted a number of 10 million – but it is not sure if he meant died or deported
– the Ukrainian historian Vasyl Hrysko counts 4.8 million victims
– Robert Conquest counted 5 million victims
-the estimated number of vicitms I quoted before, is not the number of Ukrainians but of victims throughout the Soviet Unionhttp://www.holodomor.org/ even goes as far as 14 million victims

For references, look at the article in Wikipedia on Holodomor, most references of these estimates are given there (rather than referring you to scientific articles which you probaly can’t read or don’t have access to.

Btw, the number of Jews murdered by Germans was quite possibly less than the dogmatic “6 million” (Raul Hilberg’s research). It’s now also widely believed that about 1 million people died at Auschwitz (and not the earlier figure of 4 million).

The impact of the famine is shown in many ways. Just before World War II a survey of the number of students was made. Since children start school in the USSR at seven years of age therefore, seven years after 1932 there should be an indication of the famine by a drop in enrollment. Look at these figures:

The Russian Republic (where no famine took place), shows a steady increase as did all seven other Soviet Republics, with the exception of Armenia. Why did Ukraine have an absolute loss of 600,216 students and Byelorussia (also a famine area) 11,174? The tragic story of these missing school children is written in the pages of the man-made famine.

Well, this is exactly the meaning of a sentence like: “Russia forever, usa must die!”, your words, not mine, and apparently a widespread attitude: being hostile towards countries you’re not even in conflict with.

Will48 – I suggest you learned none of the lessons from WWI, Germany was marginalized after WWI and you see they came back with a vengeance. After the collapse of the USSR, West Germany integrated East Germany and recovered to outpace Russia in every way. Keep in mind that East Germany was in shambles after being held captive by the USSR, and yet West Germany was able to bring it back from the edge of destruction and become the 4th largest economy in the world while Russia continues to languish.

daniel, man – thanks for the gratuitous insults, and refusal to debate on the facts. I always feel exalted when someone of inferior intellect immediately devolves into name calling rather than address the topic.

imho, debate about who win war is not make sence. Of course, USSR. In fact, USA and Britain join a war only in 1944, when USSR already has a unbeatable advantages. And in 1944 German was need to creat west front. Before – only air fights pursuits for submarines.

And I’m agree, Russia can’t be consider to finally win in the Great Patriotic War, until such agressive, racist, cruel, hypocritical and deceitful state like USA is not totaly destroyed. I hope Russia will correct this fault soon…

Year later Britain declared war on Germany first, not attacked (only Poland was attacked) – and the USSR condemned this act strongly as “imperialist war-mongering”.

V. Molotov, as cited in the issue of The Communist International of May 1940:

“These people positively demand that the U.S.S.R. get herself involved in war against Germany on the side of Great Britain. Have not these rabid warmongers taken leave of their senses?”

A. Lozovsky:

“The present situation created by the second imperialist war demands special vigilance from the Soviet state, it demands a farsighted and firm maintenance of the interests and independent policy of the Soviet state. The plans of the British and French imperialists to make the U.S.S.R. a supplier of cannon fodder, to set the U.S.S.R. and Germany at strife, have ended in a fiasco. Instead of going to war with Germany the Soviet Government concluded a non-aggression pact with Germany followed by a treaty of amity. Instead of going to war for imperialist Poland the Soviet people delivered their Ukrainian and Byelo-Russian kindred on Polish territory from the power of the Polish barons and capitalists. Instead of the Baltic countries becoming a vantage-ground for war against the U.S.S.R., mutual assistance pacts were concluded with Esthonia, Latvia and Lithuania. All the plans of the British and French imperialists were upset and frustrated. And when the leaders of Finland, instigated by the British and French, made feverish preparations for war against the U.S.S.R. and provocatively commenced hostilities, the Soviet Government took steps to protect the Soviet border and safeguard Leningrad.”http://www.marxists.org/archive/lozovsky/1940/05/x01.htm

if Emergency Situations Minister Sergei Shoigu has his way… Try doing any of that in Putin’s Russia and you’ll soon go to prison for three years, plus pay a crippling $10,000 fine…It’s just a hop, skip and neo-Soviet jump from there – the remarkable logic! The Whole article is built on play of the words and capable to convince only russophobe with sick thinking.

In my opinion, the shadier part of the Soviet involvement in the World War 2 was not the non-question of whether it was the winner (duh!). Nazi’s would also send as many young German men into the meat grinder of the war to win it, if they only had them. After Berlin fell, USSR had more than enough men and tanks to keep the rest of Europe scared for the next 45 years.

Anyways, the truly shameful part of the Soviet history was the fact the Stalin conspired with Hitler to divide Eastern Europe between themselves. In other words, before June 22, 1941, USSR and Nazi Germany were essentially allies! Hear this! Allies! I am pretty sure one could start having troubles in Russia for speaking this even now without that anti-speech law.

Next, look at how USSR treated the occupied Poland before the World War 2. They exterminated the most of Polish military officers, which included much of male Polish intelligentsia, essentially overnight by trucking the poor men into the execution sites, shooting them in the head and burying them quietly in huge ditches in the forests of Belarus. How is this any better than what Nazis did to Jews, gays, mentally ill, and many Eastern Europeans? 22000 people killed. A truly shameful act. To this day the Russian government actively avoids the discussion of the Katyn event as well as USSR’s cooperation with Nazi Germany before war. I am pretty sure the law mentioned above may be aimed at those who would dare to speak about these things in Russia.

At least, Vietnam is talked about in the US, and I don’t think you will find that much Americans defending what happened back then – and not just because they lost the war. And where is the Russian debate about the painful aspects of the past? Forbidden by law if som will have their way.

“After Berlin fell, USSR had more than enough men and tanks to keep the rest of Europe scared for the next 45 years. ”

If you mean “after Berlin fell” as in 1945, the US forces actually had much more manpower (as in men at arms) than the Soviets had – and untouched human reserves, including large numbers of veterans (and undevastastated country, and nuclear weapons, etc). Almost all were demobilized after the capitulation of Japan though – and their weapons… destroyed.

Poland was occupied of course during WWII (not before), which started 2 days after beginning of the German invasion (the “imperialist warmongering” declaration of war by France and Britain) and 14 days before the Soviet invasion.

Gays (read: German male homosexuals, the others were even not bothered much) were actually not exterminated in Germany. It was simply a criminal offense, and it was a crime in the USSR too (and later Russia – unpenalized only in 1993) and even in many other European countries (including the pre-Nazi Germany).

In fact, the Soviet Union before the pact Molotov-Ribentropa several years unsuccessfully trying to deal with England and France over the fact that the run of Hitler in the bud. And it would have made much earlier and without the help of allies, but at the time of the Soviet Union to Germany, there was no common borders. Stalin asked Poland to the corridor for the passage of its own troops to Germany. But Poland said that it would form kostmi, but his feet would not be in its ground red soldier. While England and France, and now NATO, just off only common phrases. Yes – let’s be friends, but what to do with this – it is not clear. And why? Yes because only dreamed about, to send a brown plague in the USSR. Of course Stalin, as head of state should be possible to avoid this result. Fortunately, Hitler was not such a windbag, and it could, and quickly, something to agree.

Stalin understood that Germany sooner or later the temptation to give the Soviet Union. And at that time the Soviet Union to the war was not ready. So how can being pulled and rearm its army. In particular, due to German technology. And pay for them so what it was – the bread and oil. Receive new items to replace the weapons. Hitler gave them willingly, knowing that the master of their serial production of the Soviet Union would not be particularly time.

With regard to the troops in Poland – it was done when the Polish government fled the state. In fact capitulated. Therefore, the Poles statement that, if not with the Russian home front, we would have defeated the Germans – just laugh. The territory of Poland that we learned, is not yet the fact that native Polish. Much has been given to Poland from the Russian Empire in the First World. And this land, we again were most important to delay the border of Moscow. This is a pragmatic calculation of the head of state to protect their country from attack. Polish government – had fled. They were spit on their country. Let it kaetsya to their people. Let the cabin super allies Britain and France, who swore in the words of patronage, and Poland and Czechoslovakia, and have only limited zakidyvaniem Germans paper. Let the Americans have cabins that fact by selling arms and both out of their Great Depression. Already here who really “won” this war! Only their “victory” to them does not. And we do not repent for that!

Our country has so much in your lives during the liberation of Europe from fascism, that your statements of repentance simply to hunt in the snout! In every Russian family will tell you the tragic fate of their grandparents. Everyone who is of direct ancestors were either killed or pokalechen, with many in Europe. Children lose fathers, fathers lose their children, wives lost their husbands in each family! These people gave their lives for the fact that I lived. And I kayus in front of them now because I can not dat’ pizdy to all the hypocrites assembled there!

Despite repeated hints from Germany in the first two weeks of the war the Soviet Union carefully refrained from any interference. The situation changed after the flight manual from the country of Poland. At 5:40 am on September 17, to the territory of Western Ukraine and Western Belarus joined the Red Army. The reasons for this step are detailed in the note, the Soviet Government, delivered at 3:15 the same morning the Polish Ambassador in Moscow, Vaclav Gzhibovskomu:

«Polish-German war has revealed the internal inconsistency of the Polish nation. Within ten days of military operations, Poland has lost all of its industrial areas and cultural centers. Warsaw as the capital of Poland, there is no more. The Polish government collapsed and shows no signs of life. This means that the Polish state and its government virtually ceased to exist. In doing so, ceased operation of the treaty concluded between the USSR and Poland. Provided by itself and left without leadership, Poland has become a convenient field for all accidents and surprises that may pose a threat to the USSR. Therefore, as the hitherto neutral, the Soviet Government can no longer be neutral between these facts.

The Soviet Government can not also be indifferent to the fact that consanguineous Ukrainians and Belarusians living in Poland, abandoned to their fate, remain unprotected.

Given this situation the Soviet government ordered the General Command of the Red Army to order troops to cross the border and take under its protection of lives and property of the population of Western Ukraine and Western Belorussia.

At the same time, the Soviet Government will take all measures to rescue the Polish people from the ill-fated war, where he had been plunged his unwise decision-makers, and enable it to zazhit peaceful life »

Well, official declarations are what they are: proipaganda verbage. Somehow, even the most repulsive international acts of states need a justification. This declaration is the equivalent of the German declaration on 21 June 1941 which they concluded with this paragraph:

To sum up, the Government of the Reich declares, therefore, that the Soviet Government,
contrary to the obligations it assumed,
1) has not only continued, but even intensified its attempts to undermine Germany
and Europe;
2) has adopted a more and more anti-German foreign policy;
3) has concentrated all its forces in readiness at the German border. Thereby the
Soviet Government has broken its treaties with Germany and is about to attack
Germany from the rear, in its struggle for life. The Führer has therefore ordered
the German Armed Forces to oppose this threat with all the means at their
disposal.”

All of these mass killings and rape are too exaggerated. War is war. There is always and rape and kill. Our troops were released before many of their lands, which previously left their wives and mothers, and saw how they treated the Nazis. They saw these horrors. Each had his own tragedy, and all were very zly to the Germans .. And in Europe, which were released thinking they were all innocent victims? And among them there was no Nazi podsobnikov?

But there was an order not to touch, and every soldier knew that may go by the tribunal for violations. And our soldiers in this sense were much executive allied troops.

Yes, all these Polish women that were raped, or these Russian slave labourers that were freed and afterwards raped, they were all nazi’s and nazi collaborators, no doubt about it. Even if one can understand the behaviour towards German unarmed citizens after all the Soviet population went through, there is hardly an excuse for the way the Polish were treated in 1944. Discipline and behaviour towards citizens was hardly enforced in the Red Army. The mentality that it is better to shoot 10 innocent people than to let go one guilty (I think this is a quote from Yezhov, but I am nut sure, coould be Yagoda as well) was well alive at that moment.

War is never an excuse for atrocities, not in Vietnam, not in Afghanistan, not in Congo, not by the German army and not by the Red Army.

And no, these mass killings and rapes ar not exagerated, they are fairly well documented.

From what I know about the treatment of the general population in Poland in 1944-45 by the Soviet marauders, the main problems was theft and random beatings and killings (often in connection with armed robberies and looting) much more than rapes (althrough this too was a problem, but I think on a much smaller scale). But I’ll admit I know little about this.

OK, I was wrong and there was apparently a lot of Soviet of rape in Poland (most until the summer of 1945, but some even in ’46-47). By the official estimate of The Polish communist Ministry of Health, about 10% of the Polish women suffered of syphilis.

@”And it would have made much earlier and without the help of allies, but at the time of the Soviet Union to Germany, there was no common borders. Stalin asked Poland to the corridor for the passage of its own troops to Germany.”

No, totally the other way around – it was the Germans who asked (read: demanded in ultimatum) two things: Danzig (then “free city”) and the exterritorial corridor to the German East Prussia enclave (to build an Autobahn and railway communication connection).

The result of the invasion of Poland was that the USSR had the direct border with Germany – in 1941 the Germans invaded using this border (among the others).

@”And at that time the Soviet Union to the war was not ready. So how can being pulled and rearm its army. In particular, due to German technology.”

Actually the Soviets were already well ahead of the Germans in the things like quality (and quantity) of tanks.

In fact they helped the Germans built their Panzerwaffe from nothing at all (at first covertly, as the Germans were banned by the French & British of having any tanks, airplanes and submarines) – this secret cooperation already started in the 1920s.

@”With regard to the troops in Poland – it was done when the Polish government fled the state. In fact capitulated.”

Did not “fled” (evacuated) yet and in fact never capitulated (only army units and besieged cities capitulated on their own – many to the Soviets without resistance, yet their officers were still later murdered).

@”Therefore, the Poles statement that, if not with the Russian home front, we would have defeated the Germans – just laugh.”

The Germans were running out of their supplies (in particular of the aircraft bombs), had big equipment losses in armoured units, autumn was approaching (important thing given the general lack of good roads in Poland), a continued campaign would result in the loss of impact of Blitzkrieg and a stalemate – not win on their own, but maybe the French and British would attack from the other side (most of the German army was in Poland). And for example a coup of German generals.

What broke the Polish morale was the Soviet invasion and the actual order to not resist the Soviets (some units resisted anyway). Whatever could be salvaged by breaking-through south wwere then ordered to evacuate through Romania (to France to fight there). The rest who were cut-off stayed and continued fighting for 2 weeks more (the siege of Warsaw etc) or were captured by the Soviets in the east (several hundred thousand).

@”The territory of Poland that we learned, is not yet the fact that native Polish. Much has been given to Poland from the Russian Empire in the First World.”

Before WWI even Warsaw was in Russian Empire (and Poland didn’t exist).

At the moment when the Soviet Union invaded Poland, the Polish defence wasn’t broken yet and the government was still on Polish territory. An dthey certainly didn’t capitulate. Fighting against German and Soviet forces went on until October. There were occasions where Polish troops had to face combined German and Soviet forces.Trying to sell this combined German-Soviet attack on Poland as just an attempt to save Poles, Ukrainians and Belarussians from the Germans is just adding insult to injury, especially in the light of the way both sides cooperated after Poland was defeated.

And by the way, searh a better translation program or learn to wrtie in English, because half of your text is plain gibberish.

Your error is called the entire chapter. The fact is that during the funeral of the USSR, so that in the minds of the masses, and thought there is no return of socialism, these head pour a bunch of help, which, in your head and do not stop pouring. It was important to impress on the gene level, that the USSR is Mordor. What’s terrible is not the regime. And for that, especially over the Soviet Union violated sacred. And this war is probably the main shrine. Therefore tried separately. But one thing to lie about someone else’s country, and another thing about himself. In the end, the society said – no, and began to appear in print such books. There are many references to primary sources. Of course this is not the absolute truth but is familiar with this, if you’re really interested in this topic.

So, in other words, you claim that the Soviet Union never signed a non-agression pact with Germany, that they never invaded Poland in 1393, that they never exchanged prisoners, among them Jews and communists, that Finland was never attacked, that no resources necessary for the German war industry were sold between 1939 and 1941, that the Soviet Union bears not any responsibility for what happened during the period 1939-1941, that the famine in the thirties, the forced industrialisation, the Great Purges, the deportation of whole ethnic groups never took place. Is that a correct assumption?

Had it not been that forced industrialization – Hitler would easily be erased us from the face of the earth. Famine 1933 – This is the tragic consequences of the industrialization. Yes it was. But at the same time for the Great Depression of the U.S. population has declined by 7 000 000. Somehow, I never heard anyone say about the repression of Roosevelt. Somehow, I never heard about the genocide of the Japanese people in Hiroshima. Why? Because you are kind and good elves, and we are evil and bad trolls.

That’s good you “never heard” about the things that doesn’t exist, but too bad you invent them anyway.

Between 1930 and 1940 the US population grew 9 million. The 1924 immigration law and the Great Depression kept immigration below traditional levels (for example, hundreds of thousands of Mexicans were back deported to Mexico).

In fact the US population rose even during the American Civil War (and somehow didn’t experience such “tragic consequences of the industrialization”).

Apart from Bris Borisov, a historian with hardly any scientific record, this claim has never been made. The population decline is based on projections based on the birth rates before the Great Depression and then counting further that in 1940 the population should have reached 140 million – that is the basis of his claim of 7 million “missing Americans”. If you realize that that years the US had negative migration, and that during the Depression birth rate was much lower and death rate was higher (just compare with Russia during 90’ties), it is not a surprise that during that decade the population only grew with 7.3 % an,d not with 13 % as before. As long as this claim is only made by one person and is not supported by other historians and thrustworty sources, I think we can view as a myth. If you want to studye the demographics of the US yourself, go to http://en.citizendium.org/wiki/U.S._Demographic_History But I would advise you to take a crash course in demographics first before starting to interpret these statistics.
And the Roosevelt repression during the Great Depression, let me remind you that Roissevelt wasn’t even in power when the Depression started.

The famine in the Soviet Union is fairly well documented (official data, eyewitness reports, official acts and memoranda from the Politburo…). You know what the difference is between the claims of the famine in the US and that in the Soviet Union? The US famine only existis in the claims of one Russian writer, the debate over the Soviet famine doesn’t go over the fact if it took place or not, it doesn’t even go over the fact if it was the result of deliberate policies designed by Stalin (at least you can’t say the Great Depression was the result of deliberate policies of the US government – in the worst case it was the result of alck of policy), but if it was intended to hurt the Ukrainians harder than the rest of Russia – that is at the moment the subject of scientific debate.

Hiroshima is by all definitions not a genocide, you could call it a war crime, but only if you use juridical doctrine which was formulated 40 years later. But there is debate over Hiroshima, there is, the last years, certainly debate over the bombardment of Dresden and whether this was justified, there is debate in the US over the internment of Japanese citizens and people from Japanese descendence during the war.

And on your last point. No, Russia is not a country of evil and bad trolls. Russia is a country who’s society fell victim to the terrifying and criminal regime that the Soviet Union was. Because of that, just like Germany, Russia – not the Russians – bears some responsibility about what happened. I also think that Russia didn’t recover fully of the devastating influence of Russia, and that the current regime still bears a lot of negative traits it inherited from the Soviet Past. As long as Russia can’t get rid of that it’s develompent will be hampered. And that view makes me a better Russian patriot than you are.

@”And it would have made much earlier and without the help of allies, but at the time of the Soviet Union to Germany, there was no common borders. Stalin asked Poland to the corridor for the passage of its own troops to Germany.”

As Robert pointed out, this is not correct. This was however the justification to attack Finland: the refusal of Finland to give up part of it’s territory was considered by the USSR to be a hostile attitude justifying a Soviet attack. To put this into perspective: the refusal of Russia to let the Americans pass trough Russia to reach Afghanistan would be a justification to attack Russia. Absurd, no?

@”The territory of Poland that we learned, is not yet the fact that native Polish. Much has been given to Poland from the Russian Empire in the First World.”

This territory was agreed upon in the Treaty of Riga, March 18, 1921. Surely, treaties have to be honoured, not? If not, then why was it wrong for Germany to recapture territory lost to Poland after World War I (Treaty of Versailles) and right for Russia to recapture territory lost to Poland (Treaty of Riga?

Paul is talking stereotypic speeches, which are not correspond to the facts (real facts, not bbc), but answer the purpose to blacken the country, which have not been enslaved for many centuries by its “partners”. Learn history better son. TV is the worst way for learning history.

I learned history by studying it at university (Antwerp and Brussels) for 7 years, specialising in the history of Germany and Central- and Eastern Europe. What are your credentials, apart from making a statement which you don’t back up with explaining which facts and statements of mine are false?

Robert, you want to say that during the Depression in the United States was not of hunger? By the way the people of the Soviet Union also grew steadily, until the 90’s. If you do not believe it – go to Rosstat

There certainly was hunger, there are reports of people hospitalised and or dying, there are reports of people found death caused by hunger – reports made to counter Hoover’s claim that at least no one died of hunger. There was criminality related to the lack of means to buy food etc. But between a certain amount of cases and a widespread famine, as Borisov apparently claims, there is a huge difference. That in an open society with a free press and entertainment industry there is not any reference to widespread hunger or famine should have made you at least suspicious towards Borisovs claims.

It is correct that apart from the war years, the Soviet population grew. But starting from 60ties and 70ties there was a declining birth rate and increasing mortality rate. This tendency was more outspoken among ethnic Slavs (Russians, Ukrainians, Belarussians) than among other ethnicities. Combined with the economic problems of the nineties thsi resulted in a Russian population decline. This didn’t happen everywhere in the Soviet Union. The population of Uzbekistan grew with about 17% between 1994 and 2008, whereas Rthe Russian population fell by 4% during the same period.

The Soviet total population actually fell by 2 million 1932-33 and by 13 million 1941-45.

And the Russian population is in steady decline since 1992, without any huge famines, world-wide crises or world wars to be blamed (the effects of the financial crisis here are yet to be seen). From over 148 million to less than 142 million in 2008 – and the ethnic Russian population was actually hit far worse than these figures indicate (many minorities experienced sharp population growth at the same time).

I lived in Ukraine at the time, and experienced in their own skin all the charm of democratic reforms in the early 90’s. And can you seriously, I was surprised, but I am hungry. Really hungry. My family collapsed. And it was a strong trend. Strongly increased alcoholism and drug addiction. As a consequence, the increased crime. AIDS epidemic. It is strongly decreased the quality of medical services. There is a pile of sects, witches and the magician. In the USSR, this was not all. Society was not ready to accept it at once in such numbers. Strong impact on the psyche. There were just constantly egregious cases of cruelty. I personally either but it is not surprising that our population so massively reduced. I wonder, and not only me, even as we were able to survive this nightmare.

But then why is nobody screaming about the genocide of Ukrainian democracy. And this of course, because we went to a better democratic future in the world of kind and good elves of totalitarian hell. They had only to enjoy this blessed cleansing fire of democracy and fueled it with pure oxygen of freedom.

Remember my words! More will be in the Russian cities of monuments to victims of repression 90. Another would be the courts over these reformers.

Oh,I guess here are just russophobes from east Europe.Berlin was taken by soviet solders,it means that the war was won by the union of USSR,USA,UK.But the bigest role was played by the USSR.
USSR might could win the war with out USA and UK,but USA and UK could not win the war with out USSR!

“Вот ваша суть – ТРУСОСТЬ!” (Your being is cowardice)
As I know from my personal streetfight experiecne that Russians are biggest cowards in the world. They only feel brave when they outnumber enemy. My friend once had a fight at school 14-15 vs approximately 100 russians and they did not lose. Just show that you are not affraid and they will keep distance. And it is important to people from West to understand that only language that russians understand is brute force (preferably between eyes).

You certainly can as long as you want shoot the breeze about what someone once said, but the stubborn facts of the thing. At a time when your grandfathers sit the eggs of the ocean and the profit on the trade in arms, my grandfathers shed blood. Of course in Hollywood films do not show it. I can understand quite unpleasant to be aware of such. Much better to draw a bunch of fairy tales and proud victories Rimbaud and Rein.

I feel sorry for you. I do not know how true this is or not, but several times on the forum slip reports that during the Cold War anxieties were training from Russian nuclear bombs. Shkolnikov driven under the desks and off the light. Any psychologist would say that this is a very strong psychological impact of leaving permanently in the subconscious. Fear of the terrible Russians simply on the gene level. This was the policy of your government. Absolutely immoral policy. And it is this fear prevents you include common sense.

Read your own newspaper war time. Everyone was clearly the greatest merit of the red army. No, it does not disagree. Read the speech Truman and Churchill on the day of victory. Until the seventies, all honor our soldiers. Then there were works of the German historian Ernst Nolte, where just made these points. Then cast it all rotten tomatoes, but as history shows, all abstracts have been taken up, and gradually seyalis in the head. Dr. Goebbels applauds standing up to its democratic followers!

And at the expense of Russian cowardice. I know a typical Russian guy. Fedor Emelianenko. Champion Pride and M1. View a couple of his fights (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Km9KwDVQkMM). So when somebody be overcome – we’ll talk about the Russian cowardice.

This is an absolutely stupid rascist article. What are the edittors trying to say? That USSR lost the war and Germans won. It is so stupid that there is no need for discussion.

As to the authors of this paper (and they are cowards, who are even scared to sign the article with their names), unless they have Naci’s ancestors, most likely even would not exist if the russians (USSR) people (not just the solgers, but the whole population) did not give the ultimate sacrifice – their own lives. Unfortunately this resulted in the existence of such scum as the article authors and their supporters. I am strongly recomending to those who are doubting the crucial role of USSR in wining the WWII to watch documentary “The unknown war”.

LA RUSSOPHOBE RESPONDS:

We agree! It’s stupid to argue about it, since the USSR no longer exists and Germany does! Germany was the clear winner.

Your ignorance is profound: “Russian” is a nationalty, not a race. Or do you think that Chechens are not “Russian”? If so, you should give them their freedom!

Thanks for all the convincing proof to support your “argument.” Very impressive scholarship, you are a clear example for us to follow.

And thanks for signing your name! Another great example we will follow in the future. (By the way, the New York Times doesn’t sign its editorials either. Is that a problem for you too?)

Russia is a relic of the 20th century. It’s in the Russian blood to be controlled and manipulated by their leaders. Russians like strong leaders so they don’t have to be strong or think for themselves. They are nothing like us Westerners, we are independent and free thinkers. That is why we have taken a 200 year old country and whipped their ass in every way. Russia is an old country but has done very little with it over the centuries.

aglyamoff – I’m not here to teach you anything. I’m stating the facts. What you fail to realize is the USA is made of immigrants, the brightest people in the world come to America, that is why Russia has a brain drain because they can’t wait you leave that Iceberg you call a country. The people that settled America had to be strong, determined, and think for themselves. Those are my ancestors, that is just one more reason the USA is so successful.

You and your ancestors, bandits and swindlers. Unique minds you simply how to swindle and fleece lately. Now it is more relevant than ever. The whole world fleece to the threads. A year later, a maximum of two, and possibly to the winter, world full plunge into chaos. Kill billions of people including because of hunger. And all thanks to your great minds of these!

The German economy of the immediate post-World War I interval, quickly dropped into a virtually deflationary phase, before entering the hyper-inflationary phase. This happened under the artificial Versailles conditions imposed upon Germany by a cartel centered on the Bank of England which would soon launch its creation of Adolf Hitler’s Nazi Party onto the world stage at exactly the time the point of hyper-inflationary blow-out was being reached. Now, a similar process leading into a global hyper-inflationary blow-out is being approached very rapidly. The conclusion to be reached now is that the U.S. and British governments are both behaving as idiots currently….

…Application of a hyperinflationary monetary practices from July-September 2007 in Britain and the United States successfully sends the economy of both countries to flooding, with accelerating growth in unemployment and closure of businesses. Inflationary spiral under control of the beholder for the administration of Larry Summers Obama becomes steeper, and wages in the vital sectors of industry and agriculture declining.

As in Weimar Germany and is happening in the United States, Western and Central Europe today, deflation in the real sector, not just precedes the time hyperinflationary price explosion, but it will be a detonator. We are now on the brink of the abyss – the shift to open a hyperinflationary explosion in prices that are very similar happened in Weimar Germany in the spring and autumn of 1923….

….the whole world rolled into the greatest depression, in which we know so far in world history. The world’s population rapidly declined from over 6.5 billion people to LESS THEN TWO, as to the Fund and is seeking (charlatans) Wildlife of Prince Philip. This will be a tremendous genocide in human history….

And you all (in the first place – the author of the article) is not difficult to re-school textbooks on history? Author of the article should be grateful for the fact that the Russian still has the right to speak in their mother (or you are not home?) Language. I thank that England had not completely into the ground vbombili. Learn to respect their saviors.

“Your ship is sinking and the rats among you are snipping at the testicles but they just can’t jump high enough – when the big bear decides to evacuate your kind will be remembered as mere kinkle – berries.”

The GPW was won by British and Americans, who also kept the Red Army and fighting by supplying it from overseas. Virtually all Red Army’s trucks were American, as well as two third of metals like aluminium and copper, rubber for tires, explosives and electronics like radio stations and manufacturing tools, as well as food.

These essential supplies allowed Russians to concentrate their beaten down manufacturing capacities on making some weapons like their successful mass produced tanks and airplanes.

That’s why it is right to say that without the West there wouldn’t be victory in GPW, and denial of the neo-soviet apparatchiks isn’t going to change that.

EN: To send the Author too softly, it (him) it is necessary to subject inquisitions as Nazism possessed by a demon. As it (he) positions one of the nations with second-grade. The Author I mean all a word blog, the same company of villains paid by services here boss’s, write, discuss clauses (articles), provoking the nations on mutual insults and hatred. I think, many in America understand, who these people. The author, it is fast you will be thrown out as the used condom, and America you will tear away as representing danger. Where will move jackals? Whence and what nations will throw mud, push together foreheads and on whose money? I hope that when – be, I shall see, how Americans of you will crush, as rubbish, before the person of all peoples and all races.

They claim their victory in WW2 for their country but cannot afford buying a bottle of Coke and a hotdog. The German veterans of the WW2 with their $$$ laughing on the side. Send them 10 Eur/USD and make them happy.

http://pajamasmedia.com/blog/author/kimzigfeld/
Kim Zigfeld is a New York City-based writer who blogs at the Pajamas Media Network blog and publishes her own Russia specialty blog, La Russophobe. She also writes for Russia! magazine and is researching a book on the rise of dictatorship in Putin’s Russia.

EN:
To Robert
Perhaps, will prompt, to whom to tell “thanks” from Russia, and Europe, for red Afghanistan from a poppy?
There is rather interesting information on a theme, can throw off the reference if it is interesting.

… About спец. Services on blog – It was ran under comments on different clauses(articles) very much frequently; Felix, Andrew, Robert. The opinion subjective – simply style of some clauses(articles) and comments directs me on reflection. It is possible to check up, any tricks.

By the way, it will be interesting to learn(find out) more about Kim Zigfield who it, that it for the person, on what lives with whom communicates, it is quite good – to publish it(him) or its(her) tax declaration in order to prevent misunderstanding different sense ….
Please, if it is possible a reference.

I guess if my nation was responsible for such unspeakable artrocities, I’d want to rewrite my history books too. ???

Red Army troops raped even Russian women as they freed them from camps

By Daniel Johnson
Last Updated: 1:21PM GMT 25 Jan 2002

THE Red Army’s orgy of rape in the dying days of Nazi Germany was conducted on a much greater scale than previously suspected, according to a new book by the military historian Anthony Beevor.

Beevor, the author of the best-selling Stalingrad, says advancing Soviet troops raped large numbers of Russian and Polish women held in concentration camps, as well as millions of Germans.

The extent of the Red Army’s indiscipline and depravity emerged as the author studied Soviet archives for his forthcoming book Berlin, to be published in April by Viking.

Beevor – who was educated at Sandhurst and served in the 11th Hussars (Prince Albert’s Own), an elite cavalry regiment – says details of the Soviet soldiers’ behaviour have forced him to revise his view of human nature.

“Having always in the past slightly pooh-poohed the idea that most men are potential rapists, I had to come to the conclusion that if there is a lack of army discipline, most men with a weapon, dehumanised by living through two or three years of war, do become potential rapists,” he told The Bookseller.

He appears to echo the American feminist Marilyn French’s notorious claim that “in their relations with women, all men are rapists, and that’s all they are”.

Any such resemblance is, however, superficial. Beevor is careful to qualify any suggestion that what happened from 1944 onwards is in any way typical of male behaviour in peacetime. But he admits that he was “shaken to the core” to discover that Russian and Polish women and girls liberated from concentration camps were also violated.

“That completely undermined the notion that the soldiers were using rape as a form of revenge against the Germans,” he said.

“By the time the Russians reached Berlin, soldiers were regarding women almost as carnal booty; they felt because they were liberating Europe they could behave as they pleased. That is very frightening, because one starts to realise that civilisation is terribly superficial and the facade can be stripped away in a very short time.”

Beevor’s high reputation as a historian ensures that his claims will be taken seriously. Stalingrad was widely praised and awarded the prestigious Samuel Johnson Prize, the Wolfson Prize for History and the Hawthornden Prize.

His account of the siege of Berlin, however, promises to be more controversial. “In many ways the fate of the women and the girls in Berlin is far worse than that of the soldiers starving and suffering in Stalingrad.”

To understand why the rape of Germany was so uniquely terrible, the context is essential. Operation Barbarossa, the Nazi invasion of Russia in 1941, began the most genocidal conflict in history. Perhaps 30 million inhabitants of the Soviet Union are now thought to have died during the war, including more than three million who were deliberately starved in German PoW camps.

The Germans, having shown no quarter, could expect none in return. Their casualties were also on a vast scale. In the Battle of Berlin alone more than a million German soldiers were killed or died later in captivity, plus at least 100,000 civilians. The Soviet Union lost more than 300,000 men.

Against this horrific background, Stalin and his commanders condoned or even justified rape, not only against Germans but also their allies in Hungary, Romania and Croatia. When the Yugoslav Communist Milovan Djilas protested to Stalin, the dictator exploded: “Can’t he understand it if a soldier who has crossed thousands of kilometres through blood and fire and death has fun with a woman or takes some trifle?”

And when German Communists warned him that the rapes were turning the population against them, Stalin fumed: “I will not allow anyone to drag the reputation of the Red Army in the mud.”

The rapes had begun as soon as the Red Army entered East Prussia and Silesia in 1944. In many towns and villages every female, aged from 10 to 80, was raped. Alexander Solzhenitsyn, the Nobel laureate who was then a young officer, described the horror in his narrative poem Prussian Nights: “The little daughter’s on the mattress,/Dead. How many have been on it/A platoon, a company perhaps?”

But Solzhenitsyn was rare: most of his comrades regarded rape as legitimate. As the offensive struck deep into Germany, the orders of Marshal Zhukov, their commander, stated: “Woe to the land of the murderers. We will get a terrible revenge for everything.”

By the time the Red Army reached Berlin its reputation, reinforced by Nazi propaganda, had already terrified the population, many of whom fled. Though the hopeless struggle came to an end in May 1945, the ordeal of German women did not.

How many German women were raped? One can only guess, but a high proportion of at least 15 million women who either lived in the Soviet Union zone or were expelled from the eastern provinces. The scale of rape is suggested by the fact that about two million women had illegal abortions every year between 1945 and 1948.

It was not until the winter of 1946-47 that the Soviet authorities, concerned by the spread of disease, imposed serious penalties on their forces in East Germany for fraternising with the enemy.

Soviet soldiers saw rape, often carried out in front of a woman’s husband and family, as an appropriate way of humiliating the Germans, who had treated Slavs as an inferior race with whom sexual relations were discouraged. Russia’s patriarchal society and the habit of binge-drinking were also factors, but more important was resentment at the discovery of Germany’s comparative wealth.

The fact, highlighted by Beevor, that Soviet troops raped not only Germans but also their victims, recently liberated from concentration camps, suggests that the sexual violence was often indiscriminate, although far fewer Russian or Polish women were raped when their areas were liberated compared to the conquered Germans.

Jews, however, were not necessarily regarded by Soviet troops as fellow victims of the Nazis. The Soviet commissars had commandeered German concentration camps in order to incarcerate their own political prisoners, who included “class enemies” as well as Nazi officials, and their attitude towards the previous inmates was, to say the least, unsentimental.

As for the millions of Russian prisoners or slave workers who survived the Nazis: those who were not executed as traitors or sent to the Gulag could count themselves lucky. The women among them were probably treated no better than the Germans, perhaps worse.

The rape of Germany left a bitter legacy. It contributed to the unpopularity of the East German communist regime and its consequent reliance on the Stasi secret police. The victims themselves were permanently traumatised: women of the wartime generation still refer to the Red Army war memorial in Berlin as “the Tomb of the Unknown Rapist”.

Let us leave those teenage fantasies on the conscience of the authors. Once again. Has this war rape? Yes were, as in any war. There is no war without the rape. Wartime measure secular curves – idiocy. However, the above does not even work for the question that rape characterized wars. The author does not say that if rape by the Nazis or by Allied troops. No. All around the white elves, who suffered the horrors of the Russian temperament of evil trolls. Up to 44 years, people generally do not know about rape. And children bring storks, as it should be in the country of the elves. But the 44-year terrible red trolls have all pious virgins rank, and without interruption raped three-plus years. When pious virgins died from the hard northern temperament and abortion, red creature made in the line of all girls of 10 years and above. When they died, the case came before the 80-year-old grandmothers. I am strange, as the author does not describe about how red trolls after grandmothers did not rank young boys. It is also needed to fill them with their naturally inherent only Russian people hyper sexually active. But it is understandable why the author had not mentioned. Everyone also knows that the Russian terrible undemocratic homophobia. A more surprising that no one remembered the 100 000 raped bear in European forests. Because of the love the Russians to the bears will not say just lazy. How? You do not have bears in the woods? Well apparently after 44 years.

Such «historical works» the hardest to read our grandparents. Women survivors of war and are now living much longer than the front-line soldiers, veterans. And you know what kind of picture they described? And this, in the village war Gadyukino sent all his mature manhood. And this long-awaited victory! And miss badly wife’s home, waiting for their men. And here in the village shortly before the fact – has returned three amputees. So they wore those maimed in the hands. There have been rare of a situation of polygamy, is not obvious of course. Nevertheless, men did not have enough for a long time. Three cripples the whole village is not served. And now they are opening the eyes of your historians. Turns at the front of these cripples even grandmothers with girls of all rape. A house apparently sugar. Apparently all the pairs fired there, otherwise not explained.

Then, this activity should remain hyper-sex genes in offspring. But just as it did not hear about the elderly Russians guvnors run for the young German girls. Once more the other way around. Strange fact that such works are only now emerging. Previously, as all are aware, but kept silent. And at the end of life of European women’s broken, and they have to remember that what has not previously been addressed. Even during the Cold War were silent as the guerrillas. And at the deathbed apparently decided to tell the truth. Son, listen to me carefully. Your dad actually Russian Red, but the one you think your dad at that time was sitting in the corner and watched as my fall.

We must acknowledge the fact that the USSR lost 20 million citizens, But I find it quiet disgusting that Stalin denounced the 3 million soviet prisoners held in German labours camps, these poor souls were given the status of “traitor” because they surrendered rather than allow themselves to become cannon fodder like so many other poorly trained and equipped soviet troops, After suffering at the front then under Nazi imprisonment, these people on their return to Russian were arrested as “traitors” and send to soviet labour camps only to be released after Stalin’s death.

Cheers to great mother Russia and its great big and heroic Red Army who still occupy over 10% of Finnish ground. Germany got her east side back 1990 but Russia still occupy Finnish Karelia. Must be hard crime what Finland did to the Russians…

Who won the battle of Ryazan in Russia during World War II, which Russians crazily refer to as “The Great Patriotic War”? Was it the Germans, who lost 500,000 soldiers, or was it the Russians, who lost a million?

Neither. There was never ant such thing as “the battle of Ryazan”. Germans never came close enough to Ryazan.

The Battle of Berlin, designated the Berlin Strategic Offensive Operation by the Soviet Union, was the final major offensive of the European Theatre of World War II. Before the battle was over, German Führer Adolf Hitler and a number of his followers committed suicide. The city’s defenders finally surrendered on 2 May. However, fighting continued to the north-west, west and south-west of the city until the end of the war in Europe on 8 May (9 May in the Soviet Union) as German units fought westward so that they could surrender to the Western Allies rather than to the Soviets.

———————————-

If, as you claim, you have some people on your staff, who are familiar with Russia and have spent a lot of time there, wouldn’t they have corrected your ignorance from May 2009 by now, LR? Clearly, you are lying when you claim that you have hired somebody to explain the Russian history and culture to you, LR. Your blog is as ignorant as ever.

If you, like any normal person who can count, say it was Russia which lost these battles and which, indeed, lost the “GPW” in its entirety, then you’d better be careful where you say it.

True. In most of the world, a person, who claims that Germany defeated USSR in WWII and killed 1 million Red Army soldiers in non-existent battles like “the battle of Ryazan”, may have to undergo a psychiatric evaluation at the near-by hospital. I have encountered lots of revisionists of history, who claim that Holocaust never took place, but few have gone so far as to claim that Germany defeated USSR. Here is one of those few who share your fantasy life, LR:

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